


Driven Boys

by doctor_jasley, gala_apples



Series: SKV [1]
Category: Bandom, Fall Out Boy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, Dark, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Misogyny, Murder, Touring, Unhealthy Relationships, Untreated Mental Illness, condemnation of prostitution
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-27
Updated: 2013-11-27
Packaged: 2018-01-02 20:08:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 36,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1061074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctor_jasley/pseuds/doctor_jasley, https://archiveofourown.org/users/gala_apples/pseuds/gala_apples
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s normal for a band to have things they don’t tell their fans. Some bands have secret love children, some bands have addiction problems. Fans don’t want to know their swoonworthy lead singer has a wife, and they don’t want to know all four members of Panic! At The Disco are serial killers. </p><p>Luckily for the fanclub, Spencer and Ryan and Brendon have no intention of letting anyone find out. And together they’re able to clean up Jon’s messes fairly well.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Jasley and I got a lot of inspiration from Fever. The lyrics _And with the way you've been talking/Every word gets you a step closer to hell_ and _'Cause I am a new wave gospel sharp, and you'll be thy witness,_ and _Oh and the smokes in that cigarette box on the table,/they just so happen to be laced with nitroglycerin_ are all right there, like little signs from the music gods. Hearing those at the beginning of chatting out this concept had a LOT to do with the M.O's we developed for the boys.
> 
> This was written for Horror Big Bang. If I had a way to check the 'graphic depictions of violence' box more than once I would. The rape/non-con box is NOT checked, but like most horror movies, there's no rape, but there are scenes where a woman dies directly after sex. Men and women die in about equal measure, but there's definitely some misogyny.
> 
> This is a darkfic. Ryan and Jon are irredeemable killers. Brendon and Spencer have so many issues that they can probably never be fixed, outside influences make them worse, and in some ways they might be more upsetting than Ryan and Jon. And the reason that the sequel is stalled out is because we don't like putting ourselves in Jon's head. It's a gross place. 
> 
> I believe readers should go in knowing that Driven Boys is a nasty thing. But if you're like me and Jasley you find serial killers as interesting as you do evil. So enjoy.

[ ](http://photobucket.com)

It’s taking forever for the pot of water to boil. The shitty heating element is so fucked that it only heats on one side and all of the other stove elements are busted or just not there anymore, and Brendon’s not really sure if he wants to cry or just throw the luke-warm pot across the room. There’s screaming from across the hall and a door slams shut. The fight continues, paper thin walls holding no resistance against the barrage of sound that’s violently ripping through the whole level. Brendon runs shaky fingers through his hair, and tips the pot into the sink, cutting off the stove element as he does so, before just giving up and sliding down to sit propped up against the tiny cabinet in his extremely small and dingy kitchen. 

He can’t stop himself from thinking about what it would be like at home right now. It’s like pouring salt directly into the wound... but hey, it’s not like he’ll need it for the pasta, will he? The cheap, shitty, so stale the store is about to throw it out pasta that he got for almost free, and still stretched his budget. Food is so fucking expensive. Never mind variety, Brendon’s lucky to have the money for anything. Dented cans of soup, massive boxes of no name cereal, anything with an off expiry date that he can wave in the face of the manager and get half off. He can’t remember the last time he drank anything except water. 

Well, water and smoothies. Smoothies have become his after school snack, and most evenings his dinner. He gets incredibly sick of the slurried fruit, but it gives him vitamin C so his teeth don’t start falling out, and depending on who’s manager he can get them for free. Free has become a hugely important factor in his new life. He works every evening that he’s not practicing with Brent and Spencer and Ryan. Brent and Spencer just fuck around, it doesn’t matter to them when they go to Spencer’s Grandma’s house. But Ryan can only make it back to Summerlin certain evenings, and those are the days Brendon has to build his work schedule around. It’s only those nights that Brendon finds himself having to make something to eat. 

If he was at home right now he’d be sitting at an actual table, not the almost about to fall apart folding one that he has not even five feet away from him. He’d be enjoying real food. 

Brendon pulls his knees closer to his chest and tries to not think about the past. He’s in the present now. He made his decisions and he has to live with them, no matter what the punishment is. The cracked frames of his glasses start to slide down his face. He’s taped them within an inch of their life, but they still like to stage an escape attempt at least once a day. It’s another thing he’s having to learn to deal with and it hurts knowing that he’s about as perfect as his glasses are now. No longer the good little boy he was supposed to be. No wonder he ended up here.

He _made_ his decisions, he has to _live_ with them. It’s become a mantra in his head. Even he if tried to take it back, if he swallowed all his pride, all his dreams for the future and went back to his parents on his hands and knees, promising to do a Mission and never touch caffeine, it wouldn’t really work. They’d take him back, but he’d forever be the wayward son, the one that needed watching. 

And the problem only compounds itself when he’s in the Smith garage. Because for those hours he doesn’t want to take it back. He’s singing and he’s got friends, and he feels gloriously alive. More so than any church or bible reading or sermon has ever made him feel. He thinks he can find God in their music. He goes to what’s now home and sees the result of his blasphemy, but for the brief moments he’s playing, he’s not sure who’s right. 

Still, Brendon wouldn’t wish this on anyone else. He’s the youngest sibling, but if he had ones younger than him he would tell them to stay within the lines. A few hours a week of happiness isn’t much compared to all the troubles it’s given him. What he really needs is to find a way to get reconnected with God. If he can show God he still believes, he still loves him and wants that relationship, then it won’t matter what his parents think about it.

The screaming finally stops down the hall, and Brendon rests his head on his knees. He’s so tired; work, school, band practice, and everything in between means he barely has time to sleep more than a couple of hours. Yet, when he does eventually find the time to rest, he’s wired awake running through his mistakes over and over again. Tonight’s different though. Maybe he’s just finally reached the end of his rope or perhaps he’s thrown himself against too many brick walls and it’s catching up with him now. Regardless of the reason, sleep starts to tug and pull at his shoelaces and Brendon lets it. He should probably shuffle to the ratty mattress that serves as his bed, but he doesn’t want to move. The position he’s in is uncomfortable, yes, yet Brendon’s okay with that. He needs the discomfort to remind him so he doesn’t forget he deserves this. 

His glasses try to side off his nose again, only to get trapped between his face and his knees, and he yawns, his jaw popping rather loudly in the silence of his mostly empty shoebox of an apartment. An idea idly slips into his head, the edges folding around his discomfort and softening it into something manageable, and Brendon muzzily latches onto it. A verse in one of their songs plays softly in the background, the words blooming and brightening into something hopeful. 

If he can’t save himself... Maybe he can save others. After that last thought, sleep crawls up to his eyes and dunks him into the icy, watery oblivion of constantly shifting dreams. 

*

Getting into college was supposed to make everything different. It was supposed to enhance his life, be the stepping stone to bigger and better things. Which, in hindsight, was possibly the mistake. Not that Ryan really believes in making mistakes. Chances are if something is wrong it is attributable to the idiocy of others. 

He had applied many places, and ended up placing his faith in that Panic! At The Disco would be the striving force of his notoriety. Which meant that he had to continue to practice with the band, creating more songs, making connections and eventually figuring out a way to rocket into the fame they deserved. Unfortunately all the other members were still in high school, which left him with no other choice than go to a local college so he was near them. They didn’t have the freedoms he did, he had to be the one to go to them. 

Ryan doesn’t waste more than a minute thinking about how much better an ivy league college would have been. Yes, it’s likely that Princeton or Yale would have students more to his taste, but the bottom line is he made the best possible choice.

His Intro to English Lit teacher is a vain bitch of a woman who doesn’t know the difference between pulp fiction and the high brow classics. She’s probably never even read Dickens. It makes Ryan want to stand up in the middle of class sometime and correct her. He hasn’t yet. That doesn’t mean he stops imagining what would happen if he did so. It’s her fault he’s stuck with this stupid assignment of interviewing his drunk off his ass roommate at 1am in the morning. She wanted them to get to know the people around them and then she went and gave them only a day to get the fucking single page of questions done. Ryan’s imagining nasty things happening to her and his douchebag roommate by the time he’s finally got the information he needs to complete the questionnaire. 

Most evenings he considers driving home and visiting Spencer. He doesn’t often have the time, between the homework piling up and the part time job he’s been forced into and the commute time, he can’t. Instead he makes do with texts, phone calls, and their twice a week band practices, and wishes it could be more. Spencer is the only person Ryan knows that isn’t worthless. Brendon and Brent are a means to his ends; a band needs a singer and a bass player. Every student on campus is a pathetic excuse for a human, all whoring themselves out for beer that tastes like piss at any party. None of the professors are intelligent enough to teach him anything he doesn’t already know. Sometimes he imagines the entire school burning down, every pathetic individual trapped inside. It’s a beautiful image, but too messy to truly suit him.

His roommate stumbles outside of their room, hopefully in the direction of the street that runs right in front of the dorm. If Ryan’s lucky maybe the asshole will get run over. At least now he has the room to himself again. His completely redundant English assignment gets shoved into his backpack and when he draws his hand out his bio 101 text flips out onto the floor, the pages fluttering, splayed open to the plant section. Glossy pages stare up at him and Ryan bends to pick the book up without losing the page. There’s something alluring about the picture on the page and he’s curious.

Atropa Belladonna. It sounds lyrical, like all the words floating through his notebook that he hasn’t found the perfect sentences for yet. No doubt Brendon would complain about having to stammer out a seven syllable plant name, just like he complains about everything else Ryan creates. It’s a toxic plant, and every word Ryan reads fascinates him more. The berries look like blueberries, but three is enough to kill a child. An adult can take up to ten before the convulsions begin, twenty guarantees death, whether it’s tachycardia or inability to breath. Eating a single leaf can kill the ingester.

Homework done, Ryan stretches out on his disgustingly lumpy mattress. He’ll have back problems in five years, thanks to the administration of ULV. He closes his eyes and begins to create a new fantasy in which he bakes a pie with the belladonna berries and sells slices for a school fundraiser. In real life he’s not a good cook, but in fantasies anything can happen. 

*

The first time someone calls Spencer a girl, he does his best to ignore it. It’s harder without Ryan. It used to be them against the rest of the skate park. Now it’s just him; the lone intelligent teenager against a sea of stoners so fucking stupid they have to put duct tape over their shoelaces so they never have to tie them more then once. His plan is to just continue ignoring all of them. He can’t fight back when it’s just him, there are never less than a dozen stoners. His set of fists aren’t much compared to twelve on him, it’s basic math.

It’s hard to tell if the guy knows he’s hit a sore spot and wants to exploit it, or if he’s just permastoned enough to be incapable of coming up with another insult. Either way, every time Spencer shows up to park he gets met with catcalls of ‘hey sweetie’ and every time he does a trick the guy and his group of friends applaud him, saying he’s showing the world that girls can skate too.

After awhile, Spencer’s not sure if he’s gotten used to the slurs and pet names of ‘sweetheart’ and ‘precious’, or if he’s just slowly starting to believe them. He guesses it doesn’t matter much. The end result is probably the same; standing in front of the bathroom mirror examining the curve of his hips and the soft roundness of his face. His hair, glossy and soft looking, doesn’t really do much to change the image into something sharper and more masculine.

It’s probably to be expected when he eventually finds himself in his parents’ bedroom one evening when everyone’s either at work or out for the day. He’s curious, and there’s no other way to know for sure if the catcalls and pet names are really warranted or not. His hand curls around the knob to his mom’s closet and he opens the door. 

His mother isn’t an exceptionally feminine woman, but this isn’t about being Miss America with a thousand dollar dress. This is about finding the truth, and he can do that just as easily with a twelve dollar KMart shirt. It’s three quarter sleeved, middling v-neck. Spencer doesn’t have the cleavage to fill the space where the fabric is stretched, but that’s the best he can say for himself. The light pink shade plays with subtle colours in his cheeks and hair he didn’t know he had. His arms are nearly hairless, what little is there is blond and shining under the 60 watt bulb in the middle of the ceiling. 

Pulling on one of her business skirts makes him laugh. It’s disturbingly short and tight, considering her age. He can see the outline of his boxers pressed against the grey fabric, the flannel covered elastic showing over the top hem. It’s not an accurate showing, and he can’t just take them off, that would be gross and unsanitary. He takes the skirt off, lies it gently on the bed and retreats to his bedroom to get a different pair of underwear. He’s only got a few pairs, for cousin’s weddings and shit. You can’t wear boxers under suit pants.

Half naked he walks back to his parents’ bedroom and tries the skirt on again. With the change in undergarments, a skirt looks good on him. His hips hold the waistline nicely, his ass is perky, his legs taper thinly into his feet denying an accusation of cankles. 

Bottom line, if he had a nicer haircut, if he didn’t recognise his own face, if he had a pair of tits, he could easily be female. They were right.

Dinner that night is the same as usual. Nothing’s changed, even though Spencer’s sure that something has. Yet, no one else notices. When he goes to bed, his thoughts twitch and slither in his head. He’s so utterly confused on one hand but on the other it’s almost as if he’s finally tripping towards a solid answer. It should take him hours to fall asleep. It doesn’t. Within moments he’s out like a light, his dreams shot through with shades of soft pink cloth and the warmth of fabrics that hug him close.

*

It’s become increasingly clear that he can’t be saved. He likes his darknesses too much. The Red Bull and the rock music and the cursing have rooted too deeply into his soul to pry them out. If he tried he would fail, and he can’t even bring himself to try. 

But witnessing his own decay has also made it clear what Brendon must do to be redeemed in the eyes of God. He must prevent the same thing from happening to others. He needs to stop the soldiers of Christ before they get distracted from their mission. If he can lead the young and pure to God, he can take the first steps on his own path to Him.

Friday night rolls around and Brendon leans against the inside of his front door listening to the noise on his level. He’s been back from work for maybe an hour or so, the green fabric of his work shirt still stuck to his skin. If he concentrates hard enough he can hear the sounds of Christa bustling around in the apartment under his. She has a ‘friend’ over tonight and Brendon cringes knowing that she’s damning herself with every move she makes. He wants to lift her up and bathe her in the light. After all she was named in the shadow of those who follow Christ. She doesn’t deserve to rot away here on earth and out in Spirit Prison. 

He’s been thinking about this for weeks now. Every time he showers in his cramped little bathroom the water sings to him and the words are always the same. He must wash away the sin from God’s children before they go Home. Sometimes Ryan’s words float inside of the droplets instead and those are the times Brendon wants to cup the water and drown himself in them instead just so he can become more than what he already is.

Christa moves to her small bedroom, or that’s what he imagines, and Brendon picks himself up off the floor. He patiently makes a soggy pot of ramen. After that, he sits in front of the door again and eats. There’s the sound of movement under him and Brendon sets the bowl in the sink. He changes into one of his old long sleeve church shirts and his best pair of pants. He needs to be collected and calm for this or he won’t do it right. 

Once he’s ready, Brendon opens up his apartment window and climbs down the fire escape to Christa’s window. Several taps gets her to open the glass for him and he carefully slips through. She’s used to him visiting after she’s free by now. Most nights they don't even interact, just use another body in a room to feel less alone. The robe she’s wearing is discolored and Brendon wants to bleach it within an inch of it’s life, but instead he folds his fingers into the hem of his shirt. 

Christa smiles at him, handing him a plastic cup filled with whiskey. He doesn’t drink it. She walks off and starts a bath and Brendon lets her. When she’s gone he pours the whiskey down the drain and crumbles the cup up, shoving it into his pocket when he’s finished. 

He counts down the minutes, and when he gets to eleven he uses the sleeve of his shirt to twist the knob to the bathroom. Christa’s soaking in the water with her eyes closed and ear buds in her ears, the tinny sound of something melancholy tripping up into the air. Brendon doesn’t think about what he’s doing beyond the need to help her and in seconds he’s pushing her down into the bottom of the tub. The blunt nails of her fingers try to claw into his skin, but the stiff cloth of his sleeves keeps him safe from marks. Words of absolution drip from his tongue and she finally stills. 

Thankfully, she didn’t thrash enough for anyone to come and investigate. Brendon spends about fifteen minutes watching the water dry around him, praying under his breath, before he slowly gets up. He makes sure not to make any shoe prints. If he gets caught he can’t save anyone else. He slips through the window and leaves it open because the weather’s hot and none of the AC units work well enough for the windows to be shut. 

*

Ryan needs to be very careful when doing his research. While there might be a few people that appreciate what he’s considering, most of the plebeians would think only of the criminal aspect. Nor would cops be happy with it. Acting hastily is the worst possible idea. He will not give in to his fantasies until he knows how to do it safely.

While the people around Ryan are entirely useless, he can often use their stupidity to his advantage. He certainly doesn’t want any information in his internet history. And the computers in the student library, while public, request that you log in with a student id number, which is obviously just as damning. However, while all students are forced to log in, many forget to log out when they leave their desk. 

There are many kinds of poison. That’s not even touching on the natural toxins excreted by animals. It’s really more about finding something or a mixture of things that would be far too common to trace. Neurotoxins and hemotoxins themselves are out of the question because there’s no way in hell he’s going to catch and milk the venom from a venomous snake. Thankfully, Ryan’s finding that many of the most poisonous plants are kept as ornamental trophies standing and wilting in the gardens of upper class homes and the grounds around schools. He’s astonished to realise that the idiotic administration have planted oleander on campus. Don’t they fucking know that oleander is deadly? It practically begs him to use it.

Still, for a long while he keeps his peace. Avoids all the cretins as best he can by staying in his room unless he’s driving the half an hour drive to Summerlin and the band. He pushes his headphones over his ears and listens to Take This To Your Grave on repeat, Patrick Stump doing his best to drown out Adam and the constant room parties all along the hallways. It’s not a line Ryan’s afraid to cross. He just wants to cross it when he wants to, not when he feels pressured into it.

And then Adam crosses the line. One night Ryan gets back to campus later than normal; practice ran a bit long, and he watched a movie with Spencer’s family after. The noise that echoes through the stairwell isn’t surprising, nor is the fact that it’s coming from his floor. That there are at least fifteen people crammed into his room is infuriating. They are drinking, in his room. They are smoking marijuana, _in his room_. 

It’s with a blissful calm that Ryan turns and descends the stairs to outside. He wanders around the grounds until he finds one of the shrubs, and plucks a few leaves. He returns to his room and sits on the corner of his bed -there are other people on his bed, someone’s _ass_ is on his pillow - and borrows one of the pothead’s grinders. The leaves shred nicely, and no one looks at him strangely when he requests a packet of rolling papers.

He leaves the rolled joint on the nightstand and waits for someone to pick it up. Unless a single person decides to smoke the entire joint themselves, it won’t be concentrated enough to kill anyone. But it will cause drooling, vomiting, and collapse. 

After that, Ryan finds himself spending some early mornings at a local playground coaxing the local dogs of the neighborhood to lick oleander sap from the cup he keeps with him. He doesn’t follow the dogs back to their houses when they wander back home, tails twitching as they go. He does however watch the local papers. When the local humane society puts out a warning to pet owners about potential plant poisoning he starts experimenting with other things. 

*

Spencer gives in. If it’s how he looks best, if it’s what society apparently wants, he’ll do it. He doesn’t dive into the deep end, he doesn’t wear dresses or skirts. But he lets his hair grow out, past the point where it’s a manly shag to where it’s just curling nicely around his head, framing his face. He also starts getting girls jeans and shirts. He forgets the first few times that the zipper fly is on the wrong side, but he gets used to reaching out his other hand after he has a piss. The shirts bring a variety into his wardrobe; there are more colours, and patterns besides band logos. 

His parents don’t say anything about it, which Spencer considers proof that he’s doing the right thing. They never would have said anything, but their lack of protest has clear meanings. His sisters tell him he looks nice. Brendon says he looks good in purple, Brent says he likes his hair. And Ryan doesn’t criticize the look, which in Ryan’s world is approval. 

The labels continue at the skate park, but they somehow seem more affectionate. When they say ‘hey girlie’ and he says ‘hey’ back, they then ask him what trick he’s going to try out. As long as he’s what they want, they’ll have conversations with him. 

There’s one guy in particular that talks to him. He was the one to start the names in the first place. Spencer finds out his name is Ben, and that he goes to Ryan’s old school, and a bunch of other information besides. When Spencer decides to go the whole way, take the final plunge into embracing who he is, he decides it should be Ben. 

See, the thing is, girls like boys. 

Spencer stays out later one night than he usually does, encouraging Ben to teach him a few tricks to keep him on the ramps as the other guys go home. When he’s finally just them, he rides over to where Ben is repeatedly trying to flip his skateboard and tells him he could be his girl. Ben asks what, and Spencer decides it’s better to show than tell.

He leans forward and presses his lips against Ben’s. The kiss is shallow, nothing more than the dry press of Ben’s lips to his. Ben doesn’t stiffen or try to back away, so Spencer edges closer and kisses him again, this time with more intent. It’s awkward at first because he doesn’t really have any real world experience with kissing but eventually they’re both kissing each other smoothly enough for things to get easier and Ben’s hands slip lower to settle on Spencer’s hips. 

Ben starts to grind against him, pulls Spencer closer so he has more of his thigh to rub against. His fingertips dig into the waistband of Spencer’s jeans, butterflies bedazzled on the pockets and the bottom of the left leg. Spencer moves his mouth off Ben’s and starts to bite a hickey onto his neck. His blond, ratty dreds smell like pot covered by cologne but Spencer doesn’t care. He just wants to make his mark, wants Ben’s mark on his neck. He wants proof of this, his first time having sex.

Ben’s so hard rubbing against his leg, and it takes Spencer a while to notice through the excited haze of _I’m about to get off with someone else_ that he’s rubbing back just as enthusiastically. He’s rubbing his dick against Ben, and that’s wrong, because that’s not who he’s supposed to be, right? He’s supposed to be Ben’s girl, and that means he can’t be hard. Spencer runs backwards, desperately needing to get out of Ben’s clutches. Everything is falling apart, and until he can figure out what’s going on, he doesn’t want anyone to touch him. But Ben must think he’s playing, because he keeps his hands in Spencer’s waistband until it’s too late and the jerking movement combined with the strong grasp makes the shitty denim rip down the front of Spencer’s right hip.

“What the fuck is your problem, dude?”

Spencer stares at him. All this time Ben’s been calling him a girl, and now that it matters he’s a _dude_? 

“Seriously man, what the hell? You started kissing me, not-” Ben stops talking as Spencer’s skateboard comes down on his hairline. Spencer swings and swing and swings, swings until each downward movement makes the air whistle and each movement back up causes a spray of blood. He swings, because it _makes sense_ , and it’s the only thing that does.

When he’s finished, he can see Ben’s skull. It’s not like they have at Halloween. The skull is black with blood, not dust coloured. Spencer is breathing hard, hands clamped to the side of the board so hard the tips of his fingers are turning blue. He carefully puts the board down one the ramp beside Ben and flexes them, the grit of the black grip tape patterned into his fingers. 

Spencer digs Ben’s cellphone out of the pocket of his jeans. He presses 911 and starts to hyperventilate. By the time an operator answers he sounds downright hysterical. “Some someone tried to. He tried to hurt me. I stopped him but-”

She asks for his location, and tells him he’s going to be okay. He thinks she’s right. 

*  
The weekend rushes by like a tidal wave of work and by the time Monday washes up to his feet Brendon’s exhausted. Not even his activities Friday night make him happy. It doesn’t matter that he saved one of God’s children when he’s having to wake up at a disagreeable hour just so he can get ready and go to school. Some days he fumbles over the idea of quitting but he already fails at enough things that to quit would only wrap another coil of defeat over his already heavy shoulders.

He’s lacing up his left Converse when there’s a very terse knock on his door. The voice of a man hammers through the wood, asking him to open up for the cops. Brendon yells that he’ll be right there and threads the grey white lace through the last eye of his shoe, tying a sloppy bow as his moves his hand. When he opens the doors there’s two cops at his door and they ask him general questions about Christa from the floor under him. He shakes and nods his head in the proper places and the cops take his word on everything. He can tell because their eyes soften when he admits to being kicked out of his house and that he works and goes to school and that it’s terrible what happened to Christa. They hand him a small rectangular business card before walking to the apartment right next to his. If he’s lucky he’ll still catch the bus. 

Brendon gets a call from Ryan on his way to the Smoothie Hut after school. He shrugs and picks it up before it goes to voicemail, it’s not like any of his fellow passengers will care. “What’s up?”

“Emergency band meeting. Spencer’s Grandma’s, now.”

“I can’t. I’m working. I have to work every day.”

“Brendon I swear to fucking Christ if you don’t come you will regret it.” Brendon winces at the blasphemy, and again for Ryan’s tone. Ryan gets uppity a lot, but he’s never heard it as bad as this, never heard Ryan believing in his own authority so much. 

He needs his job. Being unemployed for even a few days would ruin his budget so badly he’d starve. But being an hour late to his shift won’t get him fired, and it sounds like not following Ryan’s orders might get him kicked out of the band. Since Panic! is the only thing that keep him going, besides the idea that he’ll be able to save more people, Brendon pulls the lever at the next stop and gets off the bus to catch the one across the street that will take him into the Smith neighbourhood.

Thank everything that he thought to buy one of the metro commuter cards. Otherwise he’d be eating into his portion of weekly food funds just so he can catch another bus that he shouldn’t need to take today. He wants to be mad at Ryan for being able to pull his strings so easily but the truth is Brendon needs a purpose and he’s only now starting to believe that he can save others. With Ryan’s vision there’s a possibility he can reach more people. If he needs a hard and solid goal then that’s what he’ll choose. Brendon already hears the words of God in their music, eventually maybe others will as well. 

The transfer bus shows up and Brendon swipes his commuter card when he clambers up to the top of the steps. He’s lucky to find a seat and slips into a window seat near the back, bookended by the bus’s window on his right and a twenty something hoodlum on his left.

Spencer’s grandma lives in the middle of suburbia, so after he gets off at the nearest stop it’s still a ten minute walk. Everyone else is already in the garage, of course. Brent has a car, and Spencer obviously got a ride, either from his parents or from Ryan. Brendon’s not sure what’s going on, but knows something is incredibly off when Brent rushes over to him and hugs him. They are teenage boys, they _don’t_ hug.

“Pete Wentz coming to watch us play!”

“What?” Brendon’s not deaf, he heard Ryan’s shout. It just doesn’t make sense.

Spencer smirks, but there’s no malice, the expression barely covers his joy. “Ryan got all creepy Livejournaly and stalked Pete Wentz. But whatever, it totally worked!”

“He liked the demos we had on Pure Volume and he’s coming down in a few days to see if we sound as good live. If we do, he might sign us!” 

Brendon’s never seen Ryan so excited in his life. But really, it’s nothing compared to how he feels. The light seems brighter around all of them. All Brendon can think about is that this _has got to be_ a sign. Mondays never ever bring good news to him. For this Monday to carry tidings of such hopefulness must be a sign. Brendon smiles widely and lets the happiness soak into him. His offering has not gone unnoticed and they’re being graced with this opportunity because of it.

If God’s pleased with him for his helpfulness then Brendon really can’t stop now can he? 

*

Ryan has wanted to kill Brent many times. He’s never wanted to kill Spencer though. This is a first, and he doesn’t like it. Spencer is supposed to be one of the few intelligent people. Yet, he’s choosing babysitting his sisters over Pete Wentz.

Really, it’s not Spencer’s fault. Ryan tries to console himself with the knowledge that Spencer has sent him over twenty apology texts. It’s obvious from each message that he wants to be there. So Spencer made a stupid decision, but it’s not entirely his fault. It’s more Jackie and Crystal, and Mr and Mrs Smith. Ryan will leave it for now. But if they continue to get in the way of his future, he’ll have to take care of the problem.

For now he focuses on setting up the drum loops on the laptop. Pete’s due any moment, and he and Brendon have to be as ready as they can be.

Ryan’s been watching the digital clock in the far right of the laptop for seven minutes solid, wondering where in the hell Brendon is when Brendon finally shows up. He was supposed to get here twelve minutes ago and Ryan’s not happy that he’s late. If Brendon screws this up for him, Ryan will not be held accountable for his actions. It’s not like anyone would miss Brendon if he went missing. But Ryan curls his fingers into fists and pushes the thought away. No matter how much he doesn’t want to admit it, Brendon fits into the big picture. Ryan’s not going to fuck with his own vision when it’s so close to being realized.

“So they’re really not coming?” Brendon sounds frustrated, as he should be. It makes Ryan’s life easier, to know that everything Brendon has is resting on this too. 

“Can’t. We need to make this work. If Pete wants me to suck his cock for a deal, I’m doing it.” Ryan throws enough of a lift into his voice to make Brendon laugh at his joke, albeit nervously. Ryan’s not joking. He will do whatever it takes.

In the end, it doesn’t come to that. Brendon stammers like moron, and even Ryan finds himself coming on a bit too strong, but Pete doesn’t seem to be adverse to the adulation. After they play he takes them out to eat. Brendon orders far too much, like he’s starving or something, and even asks for a doggie bag. Ryan restraints his desire to hit him and distracts Pete from his singer’s actions by chatting with him over a few bites of salad. Pete tells them as far as he’s concerned, they’re signed, but that their drummer and bass player need to show up to the recording sessions. Pete cracks a grin, and Ryan smiles back, making a note in his head to look up child sized doses of a few readily available toxins. Nothing will get in his way. 

He’s waited for this for far too long. Now that it’s within grasp he’s fucking grabbing it and never letting go. Consequences be damned.

*

Brent’s fucking up his parts again and Spencer just wants a break. They’ve been playing through their set in this cramped sound room for hours now without a break. Ryan’s running them like a slave driver and usually that would be fine. But the air in the room is stale and heavy. There’s a headache keeping time in his head to the beat of Ryan’s yells at Brent to stop making mistakes.

Eventually Brent stops taking the abuse, and quits playing altogether, setting his bass down and walking away. Brendon’s been edgy and eager to please everyone all evening even if he does get snappy with Ryan from time to time. He doesn’t say anything, just starts to alternate between playing whatever instrument he’s having to play at the moment and Brent’s bass parts. When Ryan rips into Brendon for pronouncing a word wrong Spencer drops his drum sticks and announces that they need break. He needs a break.

He doesn’t give a fuck what Ryan and Brendon are going to do. For all he cares they can strangle each other. What _he’s_ going to do is go for a walk, and get some fresh air, and possibly if he can find an empty lot he’ll scream until his lungs collapse. It might help, and it can’t make things worse.

It’s an awkward town, enough buildings that he doesn’t feel comfortable having a public meltdown, but the streets themselves are empty. The morning’s issues -yesterday’s issues, the day before that’s issues- keep swirling around in his head. Spencer wants this to happen, needs it to. But it’s so fucking stressful, and sometimes he can’t help but wonder if he would have been better off staying at home. Sure it would have wrecked Brendon and Ryan’s dreams, but sometimes it’s important to place your own needs above others.

If he can’t scream, he wants to hit something. There are no pillows or inflatable punching bags around, so Spencer settles for the building he’s beside. Not especially hard, the last fucking thing in the world they need is for him to break a finger and be unable to drum. Ryan would probably go catatonic with rage. It’s utterly unsatisfying. More than that, it’s a waste of time. He left his cell in the studio so Ryan couldn’t pester him to come back, but that also means he doesn’t know what time it is. He probably _should_ be going back.

Spencer turns and jumps half a mile in momentary fright. A homeless man, wearing about five layers of sweaters in the middle of June, what the fuck, is standing close enough to breath in his ear. 

“You shouldn’t be doing that,” the man tells him, gross looking beard waggling with every syllable. Spencer winces and starts trying to edge sideways so the guy gets out of his face. And that’s when he realises it. Sometimes you need to put your own needs in front of others, and what was missing from the hit was a reason behind it. Although the few days after the event with Ben were terrifying, waiting for the cops to find him, never mind that they had no way of figuring he was a suspect, the actual event was highly therapeutic. It might work again.

He trips over a stray metal trash can lid and falls on his ass. The foul smelling homeless guy hunches close to him and Spencer’s not sure what the guy’s going to do so he lunges for the trash can lid and pushes into the guy’s gut, hard, when he scrambles to get back up to his feet. The guy wheezes out what could be ‘shit kid I ain’t going to hurt you’ or could be something else altogether. He doesn’t actually wait to figure it out.

With the adrenaline pumping into his system, Spencer hauls off and smashes the lid into the guy’s back. The lid bends some but doesn’t lose most of its shape and he does it again and again. The tension in his shoulders doesn’t lessen and the reverb from the shock of the lid connecting is making his fingers tingly. The violence isn’t helping him like he thought it would. It’s only winding him up more and more. 

Part of him wants to drop the lid and leave the guy broken in the alley right next to the building he was punching before. But a much larger portion of his brain is telling him that he can’t leave the guy alive, so he brings the lid down on the guy’s head until he hears it crack and a pool of dark blood starts to fan out across the dirty asphalt of the alley.

Spencer knows better than to run from the scene, especially holding a trash can lid. He calmly takes it with him as he makes his way to the studio. He stops for a moment at a house with drawn curtains and washes the blood off with a hose that’s curled on their lawn, stops at a different house down the block and crams the lid onto the can sitting beside someone’s garage. It’s not the best fit, but he manages to get it on. Hopefully when the homeowner comes to put out their garbage and tries to tug off the well stuck lid their fingerprints will smudge his. It’s the best he can do on such short notice.

He thinks about it for the rest of the evening. It helped so much the first time, but nothing for this one. It doesn’t make sense. 

When the realisation hits him he’s sitting on the couch with Patrick and Brent, watching some stand up comedian on Comedy Central. It slaps into his brain at such a high speed that he almost lets out an ‘a ha!’, just barely manages to hold it in. He killed Ben because Ben was being a creeper to an innocent girl. The homeless man wasn’t doing anything wrong. If Spencer’s looking for the same results, he needs to be the same person he was in the skate park. He can only go after someone that deserves it. 

It takes him a couple of nights before he’s able to find a way to sneak out from under Ryan’s watchful nose. When he finally gets the chance, he changes into a teal shirt that fits just right and flatters his complexion. He bypasses the slightly stained shirt he keeps in the bottom of his bag and pulls out a clean pair of jeans. It would be stupid of him to discard of the shirt anywhere in this state so he’s waiting until they finish up here before he chucks it. His hair gets fixed up nicely and he steals the cheapo Wet and Wild black eyeliner pencil from the pharmacy bag Ryan brought in earlier, voicing his plans on experimenting with their image, before everyone else went out for dinner. He’s sloppy at drawing uniform lines around his eyes. After several tries though he looks passable. The blue of his eyes is startling in the mirror and it makes him wonder why he didn’t swipe his mother’s makeup last time. The pencil gets places back into the bag and he leaves the apartment they’re staying at until they’re finished with recording.

Spencer walks fifteen minutes away and finds a cheap little bar/diner that will let him in as long as he doesn’t ask for a drink. One of the guys from over at the bar starts eyeing him. He does his best to flirt back. He’s never really attempted it before, mostly just asked girls in his school if they wanted to see a movie or if he could borrow their notes. Luckily Spencer doesn’t have to do much, just walk over to him and take the guy’s hand in his before moving it to his hip.

“I can’t stay here,” he says, trying for an octave higher. He sounds ridiculous to his own ears, but the guy doesn’t seem to notice. “I’m underage, I can’t be at the bar. Can you think of somewhere else we can go?”

“Do you still want a drink, honey? Because I know a place.” 

In all actuality, Ryan would probably kick his ass. But in this situation that totally works. “Do you have any wine coolers? The stronger stuff makes my throat hurt, and I like to use my throat for other things.”

The fact that it’s possibly the tackiest thing Spencer’s ever said is counterbalanced by the way the guy’s eyes bulge. The guy smiles and says “I’m pretty sure I can give you what you want.” 

If Spencer was a guy, at this point he’d probably punch the guy in the face and get the fuck out of there. But he’s not, and that would go directly against what he wants. In fact, the guy being a total creeper is far better than if he was respectful. 

Spencer follows him out to his car. The guy drives with one hand, his right on Spencer’s thigh. He parks for a minute and runs into a convenience store. He comes out with a box of drinks and twists the cap off one of them before handing the bottle to Spencer. Spencer makes a silent apology to Ryan before he takes a sip. It’s oddly almost carbonated, slightly grape over top of the vodka. Spencer rests the bottle on his knee for the rest of the drive, which culminates in a deserted parking lot in a warehouse district. Spencer becomes more certain than ever that this is the right guy, but even though his body is aching with the need to relieve a week’s worth of tension, he can’t make himself start punching the stranger.

When the man twists in the driver’s seat and grabs his shoulders to pull him in for a kiss, Spencer goes with it. He slides the wine cooler into the cup holder before it spills all over them. The man’s tongue is disgusting in his mouth. He doesn’t recognise the taste but bets it’s something like whiskey or scotch. Spencer tries to ignore the taste, because beyond that he’s actually got a good technique. The rough hands fluttering over his shoulders, softly stroking his neck, warm and calloused, it’s enough to get a tingle jittering through his body. He can see how people might want this, and he slides his hands into the man’s short cut hair so he doesn’t pull away.

Eventually though, the man wants more, wants what he thought he paid for with the wine coolers. He slides a hand from his shoulder over his chest -though he doesn’t seem to register the nothingness there, and if Spencer’s going to continue this he needs to fix that- and down his stomach to his crotch. Spencer’s stomach tightens as the man works the button onehandedly, and undoes the zipper.

It’s the first touch of his dick that brings it all crashing forward. The guy only has a second to try to pull away from Spencer and start accusing him before Spencer tightens his grip in the man’s hair and pulls his head hard towards the steering wheel. He shouts, but it doesn’t matter, he brought Spencer to a place where they could both groan without being noticed. He slams him again and again, a belt of red appearing on the man’s forehead. Eventually it starts spraying blood, and that’s when Spencer stops. He still needs to get home, he can’t be that messy.

He takes the wine cooler with him, of course. It doesn’t really matter where he ditches it, it’s a Friday night, there will be bottles everywhere. 

The walk back should take forever, but Spencer paid attention to the route the guy was taking and the parking lot isn’t too far away from their rented apartment. No one bothers him on his trek back to his temporary home. Which is good because Spencer doesn’t want to be bothered. It would only harsh the buzz he’s feeling. 

When he slips into the apartment everyone’s asleep. Spencer goes to the bathroom and flips the light switch to on. His lips are red and appealing after all the kissing and his eyeliner is smudged. There’s a spot of blood on the side of his neck near his hair line and he wets a washcloth corner. Luckily, none of the blood spattered onto his shirt. There is, however, a drop or two on his arm. He gets the cloth wetter and wrings it out before lifting it up. 

The door to the bathroom creaks open while he’s wiping the red from his arm. Pete’s standing in the doorway, his eyes flicking from the mirrored reflection of Spencer’s face and the last crimson spot left on Spencer’s arm. Pete shouldn’t be here and Spencer doesn’t really want to explain himself so he doesn’t. Pete doesn’t ask and instead plucks the washcloth out of Spencer’s hands. Slowly he leans forward and starts trying to scrub the eyeliner from Spencer’s eyes.

When he’s done, Spencer looks into the mirror. The eyeliner isn’t completely gone and it gives his eyes this eerie look of smokiness. Pete drops the cloth into the sink and makes some joke about clubs and jail bait before leaving Spencer to continue staring into the mirror.

The face blinking back at him is his. And he knows that this is who he is. Knowing that makes everything else easier to deal with now.


	2. Chapter 2

Touring in England is different. Brendon had hoped it would be different for the better; American television and music are supposed to be the causes of the nation’s youth being fucked up. Away from those problems, the English should be a better society. They’re not. If anything, they’re worse. Their drinking age is lower, their drug laws are looser, and Brendon learned half a dozen new curses before the first show was over. He likes to say them. Wanker and arsehole and slag, they roll off the tongue differently. When The Academy Is... asks him if he wants to go to the bar with them, he can, and does. When William tries to get him to smoke up in their bus, he does. Really, there’s no reason not to. 

It took him a while to realise, and longer to accept the truth of the statement, but nothing can be done for him. He’s screwed, and he’s been screwed for a long time. Once the first drop of black paint goes into white, it will never be anything but filthy grey. He’s grey, and nothing can change that, so he might as well enjoy all the vices he can. 

The booze makes his head swim, thoughts swishing around uncomfortably in his skull. It’s not a completely unpleasant feeling, but Brendon’s not sure that he likes it either. It’s not like it matters anymore though and the liquor keeps him loose and as close to empty as he’s been able to get for awhile now. He thought perhaps he could be good and light the way for other lost souls like him. Yet, how can he if he’s drowning in the bottom of an amber colored bottle most nights now?

The answer was right in front of him once. It was as clear and as bright as the sun shining on a cloudless day. But touring makes it harder for him to decide who to save. Everyone out here seems to be in need of a helpful push and he’s not sure if he’s worthy enough to be the one to give it anymore. Maybe he just needs to give up and stop trying to fight his way up and out of the mire. Perhaps letting it swallow him down would be the best option. 

The problem with drinking, besides making his uncomfortable thoughts float to the top of his brain, is that fifty percent of his band doesn’t approve of it. Brent doesn’t care. He’s in the TAI bus with him half the time, seeing if they can flick pennies into Sisky’s hair. Ryan, on the other hand. Brendon’s gotten used to the fact that he’s not the most friendly of guys, that he doesn’t really like anyone besides Spencer. But there’s a difference between being a neutral party with Ryan, and Ryan hating you with every ounce of wrath in his soul. Each time Brendon comes back to the Panic! bus tipsy Ryan edges closer to the wrathy side of the scale. Sometimes it doesn’t even take being intoxicated, Ryan looks like he’s going to shank him for just existing. So Brendon’s taken to spending as much time as possible away from the bus. He can party with TAI, or he can chill with the techs and crew. Either group of acquaintances is better than Ryan and Spencer, who’s usually not actually mad at him, but has to pretend so Ryan feels like someone’s on his side.

One evening way before sound check he’s dicking around with one of the techs. They’re playing game after game of hangman and it’s pretty much kept him away from Ryan’s wrath for the last hour. He’s still nursing a hangover from the night before and it makes him have to squint behind his glasses to see the squiggly lines better. Annie doesn’t seem to mind though. She just keeps slowly hinting about to see if genie really is the word Brendon’s picked to try and hang her little stick person for. 

He gives up and admits that yeah her word really was genie and she steals the pen from his hand and starts drawing up a new board. In between letter guesses they talk about religion. Brendon’s not really sure he wants to but something in her voice makes him stay. A part of him thinks he needs to listen, so he does.

Annie’s Catholic, staunchly so. Catholic to the point that when her parents could no longer afford her private school education she asked members of her church choir to donate her money. She teched once before, did the percussion of a Christian band.

“And now I’m here, and sometimes I wonder if I should have attempted public school, so I could have had prior exposure to, well. I suppose it sounds silly, but with No Longer Lost they were good, clean musicians, and it made me believe that the KISS persona was just that. But it’s not, is it? William and Mike, almost everyone here parties and it can get really difficult. Even the venues the bands play sell alcohol, and there are so many underage, well, _children_ , that somehow still get their hands on it. Sometimes I pray for what seems like hours, trying to will everyone into a better life. It’s just-”

“Overwhelming?” Brendon offers. She nods and he smiles at her and guesses M. 

“I try to stay faithful, remember that God wouldn’t give me challenges he didn’t believe I could pass. But it can be hard, you know?”

Brendon nods. He almost wishes he had the pen back in his hand so he could have something to twist in his fingers. He knows what she means. Knows it eerily well. 

He should probably open up and return the favor. She did tell him about her past. Every time he goes to speak though, his tongue won’t let him and his voice only spits out letters to guess instead. 

S isn’t one of her letters and Brendon’s little stick figure gains a second arm. He only has two letters guessed right, the M at the beginning and the r almost at the end, and he’s having trouble concentrating. Perhaps, perhaps he was wrong to wallow. Annie is truly one with her name and her light is bright. If she can stay untarnished here, then surely he can strive to do what is best even if he is a grey spot adrift in a sea of black. He’ll just have to work harder at staying focused. 

It’s two shows later that he spots her standing with Butcher. He’s a good guy; a bit insane, but that can make him more fun to talk to when Brendon’s drunk. Plus it makes sense for Annie to be talking to him, drum techs and drummers do that kind of thing. But Butcher tilts his bottle of beer in her direction, and Brendon doesn’t see her wave it away, or shake her head, or start to talk to him about why he can’t offer her things like that. Instead Brendon sees Annie hold out her hand, and Butcher passes it to her.

Brendon panics. He runs over and snatches it out of her hand, holds it tight against his lips and chugs the flat warm liquid in three long gulps. “Sorry, just really thirsty,” he grinds out. “Annie, can I talk to you for a second?” 

In that instant his path becomes clear. This is what he needs to be doing. He can’t save everyone; people like William Beckett are doomed, no matter what he tries. He himself is doomed. But there are people that _can_ be saved. He just has to find the right targets. Christa might have taught him a lot, but in the end she was probably a poor choice, it’s likely that even his words and actions as guided by God couldn’t help her. Taking Annie’s drink is a temporary measure to retain her purity, but if he guides her to God soon, she won’t have the chance to stray. 

It’s not hard getting her to follow him outside of the venue. She trusts him and it’s not like either of them will be needed for awhile. Once outside, Annie hugs him quickly before lightly punching him in the shoulder.

“Don’t think I don’t know you did that on purpose. You’re an ass, but thanks.”

After she gets done pretending to be mad at him, they walk down one street and the next just talking about nothing. It’s probably too late for them to be out alone like this. Brendon doesn’t really care. It feels like he’s following a path to something grand and still only partially realized. 

Eventually they wind up at the banks of a slightly choppy river. There’s nothing but deserted park benches, tall trees and the far of wash of street lights in the distance. Not a single person around. They’re completely alone.

They play a tilted version of two person freeze tag. Annie gets a little zealous and they both tumble down into the water. Brendon freezes when the chilled ripples lick against his clothing. The rushing sound around him changes in tenor, words babbling up from the water’s surface. They’re both standing about waist deep in the river and the streets lights off in the distance cast them in distorted shadows. 

Clouds start to rumble above them and a streak of bright white chases across the skyline. Annie’s hand circles around his wrist so she can try to tug him out of the water. He won’t budge, too busy parsing out what he should do. He’s not sure he’s prepared enough to guide her to the light at this very second, but if he doesn’t seize the moment she could slip into the mire before he has a chance to save her.

Lightening flashes across the sky again and he lets her start to pull him, only to adjust his weight enough to throw her off balance. They both sag in the water and her hands grip tightly to his forearms. He pushes her under gently, words slipping from his lips as he does so. Brendon’s not sure if he’s singing praises to her or heralding her homecoming, he’s too busy trying to still her thrashing to fully register what’s being carried in his voice.

The wind picks up and causes the water to become choppy. Annie’s hands go slack, floating on the surface of the water. Brendon releases his grip and she slides the rest of the way into the water, her body bobbing slightly with the motion of the rapidly changing flow of the river. 

The water starts to tug on his pants, trying to drag him down as well, so Brendon pulls himself up onto the bank. The moment he’s finally back on the spongy surface of the grass, the clouds open up and rain starts to pour down. 

There’s no telling how long he sits in the downpour listening to the water speak to him before he fishes for his probably water logged phone. By some miracle it still works, and he calls for help, telling the operator an augmented version of what happened. There’s no way he could just get away with this, too many people saw them leave together, but if it’s ruled an accident, well then that’s a completely different story.

*

If there’s one thing that touring has made clear, it’s that it’s not just university students and professors that are idiots. It has become abundantly clear that aside from Spencer and possibly Pete Wentz and Gerard Way everyone is pathetic and needs to die. 

Unfortunately, Ryan can’t kill those that are on the top of his list. He’s got a top ten list, and the members of The Academy Is... feature in whole on it. Brendon and Brent are also on it. It galls him that his list is doomed to be forever uncrossed off, just like Bush’s list of terrorists. 

Any free time is spent trying to find easy untraceable ways to get his hands on something that can do something about the plague he has to witness all the damn time. The world’s full of sluggish bums in need of being put down and Ryan’s pretty sure he’s ready to do it for them. All he needs is the supplies and a smooth enough approach. 

One night after a show, he goes out, finds a derelict little hole in the wall and just sort of sifts through the press of human rubbish packed into the establishment. He works on subtly slipping things in drinks or lightly coating a glass rim with something odorless and clear. Not once does he get caught. The place gets shut down a couple of days later for a health code violation. Ryan does his best to show not even a hint of a smile when he reads about it in one of the papers.

Still, it’s just like his experiences at the university. Making people sick is starting to lose it’s charm. It’s not enough. Derrick Anderson convulsed on his bed as a few of the non smokers called the campus nurse and 911, and two weeks later he was puking half price vodka shots into the same shrub that nearly killed him. Ryan knows from his father’s many hospitalisations that people _never_ learn their lesson, and no doubt those that can no longer go to Roughsides will find yet another bar with hideous music and tacky cowboy boots sponge painted onto the walls.

It doesn’t take much to find the perfect method. It’s the slightest bit of browsing the internet to find what he needs, in a internet cafe in Bristol, and then it’s only a matter of borrowing a tech’s car. Acetone is easy to get in any beauty supply store, and calcium hypocholrite is pool cleaner. Ryan takes both into a field and mixes them in the right amount and like magic he’s got chloroform. Ten ml should be enough to kill someone, fifteen to be safe. 

Ryan wants to laugh the next time he goes to a bar. There are so many unattended drinks, even after every teenage girl gets the roofie talk in high school. Honestly, they should be happy he’s not going to rape them, impregnate them with a fetus they’re too girl-next-door to abort. A shotglass is thirty ml, and it’s usually full to the top. His liquid would make it overflow. But any mixed drink has plenty of room at the top, and most probably taste bad enough that they won’t even notice. 

He picks one at random, quickly takes the eyedropper out of his pocket and holds it over the glass while blocking what he’s doing with his body. It’s a matter of seconds for the liquid to spill over the cubes of ice and settle into the drink. The eyedropper goes back in his pocket, and he calmly finds a woman that wants to dance with him. He doesn’t ask, just starts to gyrate, but she’s wearing all black clothing and has a lip piercing. Of course she wants to dance with him. 

It’s not intelligent of him to want to stick around. He’s watched enough cop dramas, as poorly written as they may be, to know that being at the scene of a murder isn’t a good idea. But he has to see this. Just once, he needs to be a witness to what happens.

He dances with her, and every time she presses herself against him he accepts it, feigns excitement. He won’t let her move them from his prime position, but he will let her do anything else that makes him look like a normal part of the scene. 

Finally, _finally_ a middle aged woman returns to the table with a few similarly bulging women with poorly bleached hair. Frankly they deserve to die on the basis of style alone. As the woman raises the glass to her lips, Ryan whispers in the goth’s ear that he’d love to have a more private conversation. The goth reacts well, she clamps her fishnet covered hand on Ryan’s arm and begins to drag him towards the door. He stalls at coat check, pretending he can’t find his ticket, while out of the corner of his eye the woman crashes off the stool and on to the floor, struggling to clutch her chest as her entire body shakes. He doesn’t ‘find’ the blue scrap of cardboard until the woman stops moving. High enough levels of chloroform are supposed to cause respiratory failure, and the proof is in the harpies starting to scream about someone calling 911. Even if the ambulance gets to the club by the time he’s in the goth’s car, it will still be too late.

Ryan lets the goth suck him off in the wide seat of her truck. He closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see her brown roots revealed under the black dye. Instead he pictures the convulsing bulges of fat poorly concealed under the zebra striped shirt. One down, so, so many more to go.

*

Countryside blurs by and Spencer can see smudges of green, brown and dreary grey through the window of the bus as they speed along the blacktop of the road on their way to their next stop. It’s been raining for some time now and he’s bored. Ryan’s sequestered himself somewhere alone so he can write in peace. Brent’s holed up in his bunk texting his girlfriend. And Brendon’s actually not far from Spencer in the lounge in proximity but mentally he’s miles upon miles away, lost in some thought while he watches the rain mist against the window on the other side of the lounge. 

They hit a slightly nasty bump in the road and the magazine sitting next to him slides off of the couch, the pages folding into each other when they press against the floor of the lounge. When he picks it up, the magazine splays out in his hand like a discarded banana peel. The glossy pictures smiling up at him are clothed in bright colors and their lips shimmer with glitter. There’s something breathtakingly beautiful about the composition that Spencer just can’t figure out for the longest until he actually pays attention to the play of the fabric across the chest of one of the models. There’s just enough swell there to give the model definition while also hinting at something more just below the surface.

He wants it. Spencer wants the shape of the model more than he wants almost anything. Not more than the band, or Ryan, of course. But he wants to be able to stand in a shadowed room and see his silhouette and have it contain the proper curves. He’s already got a nice ass, a thin waist blooming to rounded hips. There’s only one thing missing, and there must be a way to fix it. 

It’s with trepidation that he types his query into Google. He would blame the misspelling on the bumps in the road, not his fingers shaking in nervous anticipation, but if someone was actually watching him type he’d have a lot more to explain than misspelling. He backspaces and tries again. 

_Making fake breasts_ gets over seven hundred thousand results. He mentally shrugs and clicks on the ehow link. It’s a short article, but it seems there are three ways to do it. He can sculpt some from baby diaper powder, he can make his own mold and fill it with melted vinyl, or he can fill knee high stockings with finch food. The last is the obvious winner, as they’re both things he can actually get from a shopping mall, the next time he’s got an hour to do so.

The pages from the magazine stay carefully folded, wedged into a zippered part of one of his suitcases, for maybe a week, week and a half before he has either the time or the opportunity to buy supplies or clothing. The magazine itself got scrapped right after Spencer tore the pages he wanted to hold on to out for safe keeping. Finally they have a free day to just muck around and not work and Spencer ends up pulling out the wrinkled glossy pages to look at when he’s alone. His fingers trace the shape of the model he wants to be like and he starts to plan out what he wants to buy. There are a lot of things to figure out. Does he want a button up blouse or a pull over one? Does he want to wait and go shopping for them after he’s already sculpted his chest into it’s proper proportions? Or does he want to go ahead and collect articles of clothing along the way? 

It makes sense that if he wants to have a proper fit that it would be best to find some birdseed and stockings to start fiddling with. Any other course of action could mean his clothing wouldn’t fit right. That would be a fucking shame. 

His heart seems to beat at triple the normal pace as he buys two cups of finch seed at the pet store. Normally he doesn’t like to go in, seeing all the animals pathetically wanting love makes him feel guilty he can’t save them. He resolutely doesn’t look at them, just scoops the seed and marches to the counter. According to the article that he read a dozen times before clearing his internet history -losing a ton of youtube links he meant to show Ryan, a sacrifice for the greater good- one cup of seed is a large B cup. Any bigger and they’ll look fake.

The pantyhose are equally as nervewracking to buy. No one looks at him, not even the cashier, but Spencer needs to take a minute to lean against a wall and breath after he pays. Once he’s centred himself he heads for the washrooms on the second level. He takes both tiny shopping bags into the men’s bathroom with him. It’s easy enough to fill the stockings and tie the ends off, and slip both breasts into a single bag. 

After that, he goes straight for the massive Target attached to the end of the mall. Yes Victoria’s Secret would have better quality items, but they also have employees that watch every move. What Spencer needs is to shop somewhere that no one cares if he takes three different cardboard boxed bras into a change room, because all they want is for their shift to end.

Browsing for bras isn’t hard to do. The undergarment section is easy to find, and none of the employees give him a second glance beyond asking if he needs help. But the aisle of boxed bras is tricky. There are underwire, sports’ cut, cushioned cups, cross supporting, and so many other technical terms for the sheer volume of different types of bras imaginable. Spencer curls his fingers into the handle of his red and white store bag that makes it seem like he bought something in electronics or something before he decided he forgot something and had to rush back in the store and tries to decide. Realistically, he knew coming in that there isn’t just one uniform bra design but the variety is just making his decision harder. 

For his first bra he decides against something lacy. That can come later, when or if he needs it. For now he needs something functional. In quick succession, he plucks three boxes from the transparent drawer that’s sitting open in front of him and goes to the changing room. Hopefully, he estimated right with the measuring tape so he has the right band size now. 

The girl sitting on the bright red employee stool in front of the changing room is young and could care less that she has a job to do. In a droning slip of a voice she asks him how many items he has and thrusts a plastic door sign into his hand. The number three is etched in thick black paint on the white skin of the sign. She doesn’t even bat an eyelash when he take his bag with him. 

When he’s finally closed off in the handicapped stall, he starts to fumble about with the first bra. It’s too tight, especially with the bird seed boobs peeking out, so he folds it back up and shoves it back into it’s box. The second one fits like a charm, his make shift chest curving just the right amount to hint at the perfect swell, but Spencer tries the third one on anyways just to be sure. He still prefers the second one the best. 

He unhooks the third one slowly, after he’s already removed his breasts, and it gets shoved into it’s box as well. It means he’s left with only the second bra. He tries it on again and this time he slips his shirt back on. The difference is startlingly wonderful and he ends up staring at his reflection for far too long just imaging what he’d look like in something shaped in some other way than what he’s wearing at the moment.

He can’t really try on clothes at the moment. To buy a bra and an entire wardrobe of clothes at the same store would be just asking for trouble. Not to mention that if goes back to the bus with a big bag at least Ryan and probably Brendon will want to see what he bought. But he does get a skirt. He doesn’t try it on, just holds it to his waist and smiles when the half of the width stretches from hip to hip. It might look strange when he actually has a moment of privacy in the bus and can try it on, but the colour and shape are similar to the one in the magazine and he wants it. If it doesn’t work he can always toss it out later. 

When he gets back to the bus the skirt gets folded into a tiny square and wedged into the same zippered pocket that still holds the magazine pictures, and he carefully hides the bra and his breasts in the bottom of his heaviest suitcase. No one will willingly even so much as try to move it, it’s way too heavy. It could probably kill Brendon if it landed on him from a height, at the very least break a rib. After that, Spencer bunks down and thumbs through the music on his iPod. He wonders offhandedly if the teal shirt from all those days ago might match the smokey grey of his brand new skirt. Hopefully he won’t have to wait long before he can find a chance to find out. 

*

So, technically it’s not sloppy seconds. Sloppy seconds is, according to the brilliant minds of Urban Dictionary, using someone else’s come as your lube when fucking someone. Jon doesn’t do that, none of the groupies he ends up with were used by someone else first. It’s not that William and Carden and the rest don’t want a good fuck. It’s just, there’s a lot of people to go around. No need to double up. Unless you’re into that kind of thing, like Sisky and Butcher. 

So it’s not sloppy seconds. It’s more like riding in the wake of fame. For a lot of them, all that matters is that he talks to the band, that he can get a message or phone number or declaration of love to William. Sometimes, if the woman is drunk enough, and stood far away enough from the stage during the show she doesn’t even seem to realise he’s not actually part of the band, just a tech. 

He didn’t used to do this. He didn’t have a reason to. He had Cassie, the woman he loved, the woman that loved him. What reason would he have to scrape a bit of the froth off the layer of bubbly sluts trying to get at the sweet drink that is a musician? They had each other, and between that they had everything. They both liked animals, they both wanted kids. They made each other laugh, they knew when to back off. They were happy living together in love, and they were even happier together when making love.

All up until the moment when Cassie said she wasn’t happy anymore. Said he was _scaring_ her. How ridiculous was that? So he was a bit enthusiastic in bed. Who cared?

Tonight he has an extremely tipsy bottled redhead trying to curl around him. She’s shorter than him and he keeps catching glimpses of her light brown roots when her head sways in and out of his path of vision. They’re at a bar for the after show party and Jon’s not sure if he wants to drag the redhead to the bathrooms and see if he can make her scream or if he wants to tug her outside and push her into brick.

The music changes to something slow and the redhead curls tighter around him and giggles into his shoulder about them maybe finding someplace for the night. Jon nods before letting her lace their fingers together so she can lead him out the front of the bar. As soon as they’re outside, he crowds her up against the brick side of the building and starts to kiss her. 

She’s not tall enough for kissing to be deep but Jon doesn’t stop placing aggressive nips to her already reddened lips. The moment she bounces up on her feet to reach his mouth better, he pins her right shoulder to uncomfortable grit of the brickwork so she can’t slide back down when she’s done kissing him back. This way it makes the angle better for him to get more pleasure from the action of biting her lip. 

She squirms and he adds more pressure to the hand pinning her. A breathy ‘oh’ escapes her mouth when he finally pulls back enough to make sure that she’s still on the same page with him while his other hand searches under her impractically short slip of a skirt. Her hands move from his shoulders and she helps him tug her panties off and unzip his fly. 

He drops the pressure on her shoulder long enough to fish in his pants pocket for a condom. It doesn’t take long for him to roll it on and push her back against the brick as hard as he possibly can. She winces but doesn’t complain and he slides in. There’s no slow going about what he does. She wants it fast or she wouldn’t have let him get this far.

He uses his weight advantage and height to keep her pinned against the unyeilding surface of the brick. She’ll probably have friction burns on her back after this. The thought causes his grip to tighten and his thrusts to go deeper. Suddenly his body tenses and he comes. The red head goes stiff against him before she shudders around him. 

The next night it’s the same. Well, there are differences in the details. Instead of a redhead it’s a bleach blonde asian, instead of her being tipsy, she’s fucking smashed. Jon’s pretty sure if he tries to get her to suck his cock she’ll end up vomiting. And while that makes sort of a pretty image in her head; her collapsed on the floor, tears tinted black from eyeliner streaming down her cheeks, spots of come and vomit all over her plaid dress, there’s always the possibility he won’t move in time. He can’t afford to have these jeans splattered with vodka-puke, Academy gets a runner to do laundry frighteningly infrequently.

Overall though, it’s the same chain of events. He watches his friends play and takes care of their instruments first, she approaches him and says something like ‘so you’re with the band?’ with a giggle attached. He couldn’t quote it for sure, he doesn’t really listen to women speak any more, but it’s usually something like that. He says yeah, and she starts rubbing herself on him like she’s in heat. 

He takes this one to the bathroom. Each thrust makes her eyes water, each drop of liquid makes him want to do it even harder. He used to care if his bedmate was enjoying themselves, but that didn’t get him anywhere, except out of a bed, bedroom, and entire apartment. William asking him to tech came at the perfect time, otherwise Jon would have been homeless. So he just pistons forward, getting what he needs. The only problem with it is that she’s trying to talk to him. He tries to make the babbling stop with a kiss, but when he pulls off for breath she tries again.

Really, he’s only got one option left. He covers her mouth with his hand, making a perfect seal. He continues to fuck her, in the blissful silence. When he’s done, dropping the condom into the toilet, she shoves him hard, making him stumble into the stall wall, and storms out. He rolls his eyes, a mixture of confusion and annoyance. What the fuck was her problem? She got what she wanted, a fuck by someone who knew the band. 

The night after the blond, he coaxes a woman with black and peroxide blond hair to a dark corner of the alley outside their most recent venue and shoves her to her knees. Every night after is pretty much the same as the next and Jon’s starting to get frustrated. All the sex he’s been having usually takes the edge off his grumpiness and irritation but it’s slowly losing it’s shine. It’s almost as if he’s beginning to realize that he’s missing something important. Some spark of moreness that he hasn’t found just yet.   
*

Brendon’s sitting on the edge of the empty performance stage of their next venue, his sneakers swishing back and forth under him. The techs and the crew are pushing and hauling equipment in. He should be polite and help but lately a lot of them seem to edge away from him like he’s a death omen. And the ones that don’t seem to think he’s in need of some form of pity coddling. The problem is if he’s avoiding them, there’s not many others for him to hang with. Ryan’s still being huffy with him even though he hasn’t had more than one beer in a single sitting since he pulled himself up and out of the river. And Spencer is too busy being distracted by something he won’t tell Brendon about even when he gets annoying and won’t stop poking Spencer in the shoulder asking ’come on....tell me...tellll meeee.’ 

The only person who will give him the time of day now that he’s newly anointed and not drunk off his ass all the time is Jon. When they’re both free, Brendon finds himself slipping into easy conversations with Jon that range the gamut from Disney musicals to cute baby kittens and it’s something he never really thought he’d get to have. Sure Ryan, Spencer, and Brent are his band mates and thus close but it’s been so long since he’s had someone he connects to so easily. Not even Annie clicked as well as Jon does with him.

Sometimes, when he’s especially bored, he steals Brent’s bass and gives it to Jon. Brent never notices, he spends every waking minute on his cell phone, texting Shannon. When he’s not texting Shannon, he’s reading her texts out loud, as if Brendon and Spencer and Ryan are there because they care, not because they’re living in a vehicle traveling 55 mph down a highway and are forced to listen. 

Jon’s really good. Not that it should be surprising, he does tech Academy’s guitars, which means he needs to know what they need, like a guitar whisperer or something. But Brendon had figured there was a reason he was a tech instead of in his own band. Turns out he was in a band, until it broke up and he decided to get something with a higher chance of being able to pay the rent. Then Jon laughs bitterly and says it’s not like that matters anymore, and Brendon’s not really sure what he’s talking about, but changes the subject anyway. 

Brendon does his best not to dwell on things he doesn’t know and they end up talking about Aladdin until they’re called apart. The show goes well that night and the several others after it and Brendon’s still buzzing with the after glow of a jamming set when he gets dragged off to a bar to celebrate with Jon and some other people. 

He ends up at the back of the bar pretty early, nursing a single bottle of beer in his hands while he twists back and forth on the stool he stole from someone who got up to leave. Jon’s somewhere in the crush of people letting some drunk chick grind against him and it makes Brendon pick gloomily at the label of his beer bottle. On his twelfth twist to the right, he accidentally bumps into a twenty something brunette. Her cross sways from her neck when he thunks into her. 

She smiles at him and they start to talk. She was at the show earlier and loved their set. Never thought in a million years that she’d actually run into him in real life. Brendon stares at her with a goofy grin before asking about the cross around her neck. She reaches for the bottle the bartender hands her before telling him that it was a gift from her parents when she went away to college so she’d remember that no matter what she’s never alone. 

After maybe an hour, she says night to him and walks off. Brendon lets her and waits until she’s out the door before he pays his tab and goes to the bathroom. A twist and a turn later and he’s out the back exit and by some miracle he catches Abagail round a corner. He takes it as a good sign when she doesn’t think he’s creepy and instead asks if he wants to walk with her for awhile.

Eventually they end up at an old park. The swings sway in the light breeze and Brendon can hear them creak from his perch on the lip of the mostly drained community pool. They’d hopped the short fence surrounding it once they were certain there were no cameras posted. Abagail’s talking about something he should probably be listening to but his thoughts keep bouncing between her sipping from the bottle earlier at the bar and how filthy the water at the bottom of the pool is. He wants to save her badly. Yet he’s not sure that he can bathe her in the mildew and algae floating down at the bottom. 

She tugs on his shirt sleeve and says she has to go to the bathroom and would he go with her because she’d feel safer if he followed. Since they’re on the other side of the fence it’s easy to get into the woman’s restroom. Brendon leans against the tiles of the restroom when she picks a stall. The flush of the toilet grabs his attention but he shakes his head. Even that option would be unsanitary but at least that means the water’s still working.

Abagail smiles at him when she goes to wash her hands, her reflection barely sparking off the dimness of the mirror. The rushing water murmurs to him and Brendon presses up behind her, forcing her head sideways into the bottom of the wide sink basin. Her dark hair stops up the drain and it begins to fill. Her hands flail but she can’t find the purchase to push herself out of the cleansing stream of water pouring from the faucet. 

The water starts to spill onto the floor and Brendon widens his stance so he doesn’t step in the puddle forming under the sink. His voice floats up softly in the emptiness, something rich and full of the gospel and Abagail finally stills. As gently as possible he lifts her head out of the sink and lays her on the tiles of the bathroom floor. Her hair fans out and in the scant strips of moonlight coming from the bathroom window she looks like the vision innocence. 

He stretches his body over the pool of water so he can turn the taps off. For a moment he worries about fingerprints, but it’s a park bathroom, there should be hundreds all over the room. It’s not like he’s on record anywhere anyway.

By the time he walks back to the bar he’s got several angry voice messages from Zack asking him where he is, bus call is in mere minutes. He calls back and apologises, explaining in a perfectly stammered tone that there was this girl. Zack’s voice almost goes soft at that, probably shocked that Brendon was a virgin. Of course, he still is, but he can handle the lie if it excuses his other behaviour. A lie in the aftermath of the boon he’s just done is nothing. 

*

Ryan genuinely hopes he finds Brent in the overly crowded club, made so by the fact that it seems to be the only club in this tiny town in this filthy state. Entering the man who took his cover demanded he put a stamp on his hand, even though Ryan tried to explain he would not be interested in coming back inside should he leave. The man had not taken no for an answer, and now Ryan has a disgusting blue smudge of a bear paw on his hand, larger than a quarter.

The evening doesn’t get better when he walks onto the floor. It seems as if the entire population has decided to cram itself in the tiny building. Everyone is rubbing against him, bumping into him. Unless it’s Spencer, or a stage performance, or a necessity to keep face, Ryan does not like to be touched.

He’s desperate to find Brent, as much as Ryan is ever something as pathetic as desperate. It’s as likely a place as any, really. He knows that Spencer and Brendon are looking too, in places that are not a filthy bar. Panic! have a day until their next show, they need him. Pronoun specific, they, as in Spencer and Brendon need him. Ryan has finally realised the truth. Brent is nothing. He was dead weight while recording Fever, he was dead weight all during their European tour, and Ryan is very sincerely hoping that soon Brent will be dead weight on a slab in a morgue. 

His first circle of the club yields no Brent. The bathrooms are full of junkies and whores. Ryan tries his best not to even graze the walls with his clothing. Everything is vile and disgusting in here. The rot of the world converging in one place to sludge and congeal. It’s sickening, and Ryan itches to do something. 

On his second circle of the place, it still offers up no trace of Brent and Ryan clenches his fists. He’s so close to wanting to set something on fire or punch the living shit out of someone. But both of those options would be too messy and in the long run would not be worth the effort anyways. When an animal is diseased it gets put down, something toxic slipped into it’s veins to quell the essence of life that lurks under the decay. 

Really, it’s probably better that Brent won’t be the chunk of bile removed today. As much as Ryan burns with the need to take him out, it’s likely that others can sense his fury. It’s an emotion he shares with Spencer and Brendon, and probably Pete as well, but if Brent was to turn up dead, the rage would make them likely suspects. There’s no need to pull so called ‘authority’ towards his life and the future of his band. 

Still, there’s no sense in having a wasted night. His eyedropper is in his pocket and it’s become more and more obvious that every person in this bar deserves it. He sidles up to a table at random, drips his magical concoction into the glass and moves along.

The thump of the music changes into something faster and he blends back into the press of bodies, hating every single graze and nudge of contact that slips against him along the way. It takes maybe two minutes for him to wash up at the exit and with steady feet he walks outside. He doesn’t need to look back to know if his cocktail of chemicals will work, because he already knows it does. No reason to stay if he’s certain that he’s properly spiked the drink. He wasn’t wrong last time and he’s not this time either. 

*

Spencer has never been more happy for a hotel night in his life. Today he had to phone Brent and with Pete’s phrasing still stuck in his head fire him as professionally as possible, even though all he wanted to do was swear at the fucker for almost ruining their chance to be huge. Brent had actually had the nerve to yell at him, and all Spencer could do was what Pete asked; stay calm, get the job done, hang up. 

If it wasn’t for Brendon being able to convince Jon to quickly learn the bass parts and fill in for Brent, Spencer thinks he’d currently be trying to stop Ryan from going on a murderous rampage. Luckily he made friends with the tech on their last tour, enough so that apparently all it took was a please and an over the phone duet of A Whole New World. Which they had heard in it’s entirety through the door adjoining their rooms, and to Spencer’s ears seemed pretty akin to the original, but Ryan hadn’t appreciated. 

Nor does Ryan seem to like the way Brendon’s washing himself. They can hear the water tank too, Brendon’s been showering for the last hour. Spencer doesn’t know how he can stand it, the water must be frigid by now. But he’s about to go crazy if Ryan doesn’t stop complaining. Technically, since Brent’s no longer rooming with Brendon, Spencer could escape there. Except he doesn’t have a crushing urge to be with Mermaid Boy either. 

Screw them both, he’s going out. As surreptitiously as possible he rushes a change of clothes into a messenger bag and tells Ryan he’s going out for awhile. Ryan scowls, which is answer enough. 

Hotel lobbys tend to have a washroom, and this one is no different. Spencer takes off his male clothes and shoves them haphazardly into the bag, along with his shoes. In the privacy of the bathroom he hooks up the bra behind his back, and then adds his breasts, taking a moment to shape them with his hands so they fit properly inside the white form. 

After he’s got his bra fixed and not slightly crooked like it was seconds ago, Spencer steps out of his boxers and tugs up a sensible pair of panties that won’t show from under the fabric of his dress. Once he’s properly tucked in and comfortable he slowly unfolds his new dress. A couple of shakes takes care of the worst of the wrinkles. 

With a shimmy and quiet a few shakes he’s safely caged in the fabric of the dress. A few adjustments and his breast fill out the chest perfectly and his hips give the waistline just the right amount of curve to be alluring. He smooths his hands over the dark blue of the dress and tries to tug out the last remaining wrinkles that try their hardest to cling on for their dear little creased lives. 

Thankfully, the toilet has a lid cover and Spencer eases it down so he can sit on the edge. It took him fucking forever to learn how to walk in heels and he’s still no expert at standing on one foot while trying to buckle the other one up. He doesn’t really worry about it. He’ll either master it or he won’t. As long as he’s able to walk without breaking both of his ankles then he’s more than fine with having to sit every time he has to put on his heels. 

Once he’s finished looping the tiny top strap across his left ankle he shakes first one foot and then the other to get his feet to properly settle into the center of each shoe. When he’s satisfied with the feel he stands up and calmly looks into the tiny mirror hung over the wash basin. He looks stunning.

The giant messenger bag he has no choice but to take with him in a taxi to nearby club throws off the look a little, but it’s not like he can take it back to the hotel room. A moment at the coat check removes the difficulty, and then he’s on the dance floor. When Spencer is in his male clothes, he’s nowhere near willing to dance. Like this is different. Like this he looks like the kind of woman that would be an excellent _sexy_ dancer, and because that’s who he should be, he is. In certain outfits, anything is possible.

It’s hardly a surprise when he gets propositioned. Spencer knows what he looks like, he should be getting drinks and offers to dance every three seconds. The more that inquire the more selective he is. This is a evening where he deserves to get the best treatment. 

Eventually he finds a guy he deigns to go home with. Home meaning motel, of course, Spencer doesn’t have to see the circle of untanned skin on his ring finger to guess that he’s married. As dickish as that is, Spencer has to admit he’s admirable in other ways. He opens a bottle of wine from the alcohol cupboard, then pours a glass for Spencer before doing his own. He doesn’t seem to want sex immediately, just sits on the edge of the bed and talks to him. Plus there’s the fact that he’s gorgeous. 

Craig retires to the bathroom, and Spencer crosses his arms lightly over his chest, careful to not smoosh the seed out of shape. He listens absently as the shower briefly turns on, wondering if Brendon a few blocks away is still experiencing the same thing. When Craig comes out he has one of the crisp white towels wrapped around his waist, the rest of his body still glistening with water. Tiny drops fall onto Spencer’s bare shoulders as Craig bends to kiss him. Spencer returns the kiss whole heartedly, enjoying the feel of someone’s tongue against his.

He unfolds then, taking one of Spencer’s hands and pulling him to stand. His hand moves to his waist and with a quick pull of the knot the towel falls to the floor. Spencer takes in Craig’s smile, his sparsely haired chest, his wet abs, his hardened cock. And that’s when Spencer grabs the bottle of wine and hits Craig in the face with it has hard as he can. Craig stumbles with the force and screams once. It’s a shrill sound that quickly cuts off when the bottle strikes the softest part of his skull. He drops to the floor, and Spencer hits him once more, grateful that the bottle is durable. 

Spencer hits him until the blood splatter makes it obvious he’s not going to be waking up from a concussion. He strips and dampens part of his dress before he uses it do clean his arms and face. He doesn’t want to shower, inevitably a few hairs will come out, and that’s not the sort of evidence he wants to leave in a drain. Once he changes back into his other clothes and pulls up his hood his sticky hairs isn’t noticeable. No one even glances at him as he strides out the front door. It’s a pay by the hour motel, meant for hookers and drug deals, the manager doesn’t want to deal with having to provide a sketch at the police station. Ryan might get a bit shouty at him for joining Brendon in his showering madness, but it’s a small price to pay. 

*

Being part of Panic at the Disco makes it even easier to get chicks. Now that he’s an actual member of the band, one easily noticeable by the costumes Ryan dictates they wear, people want him. All sorts of women want him, and there are even a few guys. Jon tends to pass on the guys though. When they don’t want the same kind of sex he does they’re more physical about stopping it.

Even better, now he's got a bus to bring them back to. It's kind of funny the way Spencer and Ryan and Brendon all flee like innocents. It’s hard to imagine that there could be any virgins on tour, but sometimes he wonders. Even if they aren’t, they’re still prudes. William, Tom, really, none of Academy would have thought about leaving the bus if he’d brought a woman on to party. 

With everyone scattered off to wherever they’ve planned to be for the next several hours, Jon has the lounge all to himself. He can entertain himself how he pleases. The woman sitting next to him fidgets and nervously curls her hands into her lap. That doesn’t mean she shies away when he kisses her roughly on the lips. For the life him he can’t remember her name, not that it matters because she’s not stammering out bad porn phrases or trying to tell him stupid little facts about her average normal regular life. If she’s not speaking then there’s less of a chance that she’s expecting him to. He hates when they expect him to whisper dirty things into their ears. Like they matter to him when they clearly don’t. 

He kisses her again before shifting their position. She goes willingly and after a moment of Jon tugging and pulling, she’s pressed into the lumpy cushions of the couch at just the right angle. Her hands scramble up to grab his forearms when he grinds down against her thigh. Her fingers will probably leave bruises but thankfully it’s chilly enough that he can get away with wearing long sleeves for a few days. She’s not fighting him though, not one little bit and Jon needs more. 

He has no trouble sliding down her panties and lifting up her skirt. He rolls on the condom expertly and pushes into her. The breathy little moans coming from under him do nothing to sate his need. He doesn’t think about it when he brings one of his hands from her waist up to her throat. 

She seems to think it’s a kinky joke for a minute, she smiles and moans again, voice a bit rougher this time. Jon’s response is to move the position of his hand, find where her arteries seem to be pulsing and clamp down as hard as he can. It’s ten thrusts, thirty slow seconds before she stops kicking and her eyes roll to the back of her head. It’s thirty seconds that will forever be burned into his brain, every twitch. When her body goes slack he comes. He can’t help it. It’s embarassingly premature, but it’s not like she’s going to tell anyone.

He pulls out, wet condom still on his softening dick. He doesn’t want to be in her as he feels her go cold. He’s heard that sometimes people lose their facilities as they die, that would be disgusting. Instead he straddles her, leg on either side of the crumpled skirt, hand steadily pinching her arteries. The last thing he wants is to let go too soon, and have her eventually wake up.

Jon startles badly as he hears a soft ‘hey’ from the doorway. Brendon’s staring at him from the doorway of the lounge, his glasses slipping low on his nose. Jon almost wants get up to gently push the bridge of Brendon’s glasses back up onto his face but he can’t let go of his grip. The minutes count down in his head and Brendon does nothing from his spot at the doorway. 

Jon’s expecting maybe a frantic flutter of limbs and Brendon trying to shove him off of the woman so she might not die because it’s fucking obvious what he’s doing. Or maybe he’s expecting Brendon to shout out and go for his cell so he can call 911. But Brendon does neither of those things. Instead he stays until Jon finally releases his hold four minutes later before silently padding down towards the bunks. 

Jon rolls the condom off and throws it into the trash can. He can throw it out later. Right now he needs to worry about disposing of the body and finding out what Brendon’s up to. He’d rather not have two bodies to deal with, but he doesn’t want to go to jail either and there’s no way any jury would think he accidentally asphyxiated some random groupie to death. 

He zips up and goes to move in the direction of the bunks when Brendon comes back to the lounge with a folded up black sheet. The thing looks brand new and Jon’s not really sure why Brendon would have a brand new black sheet with him but he doesn’t say anything. Brendon goes over to the dead body and starts slowly wrapping her up in the sheet, being careful not to touch her with his bare hands. Jon’s impressed.

Brendon hums something gospel sounding under his breath before asking Jon to help him. They end up dragging the body out of the bus and sneaking around to borrow one of the venue cars. No one sees them and Jon has no clue what’s going on. Brendon shouldn’t be so calm about this. He’s Disney movies and nervous energy, not some stone cold serial killer. 

Eventually they stop after taking several gravel roads, and Brendon puts the car in park. They grab the body from the trunk and Brendon walks in the direction of a river bank. They end up finding a fallen tree that’s laying out over the water, glittering black liquid slopping against the sides of the tree in the moonlight. Jon watches the ripples in the river as they slowly edge out onto the dry surface of the tree, with the body held between them. 

“I’m sure you were only trying to help her, but you can’t just kill someone without having some sort of a plan.” It’s the only thing Brendon says to him while they slowly slip the body down into the water, the rushing current sweeping her away in seconds. When they go back to the car, Brendon has the women’s wallet, her necklace and his black sheet with him. 

Jon drives them back, wanting to ask Brendon a hundred questions, not knowing where to start. He keeps on getting flashes of the groupie in his head, and every time they flash his dick twitches. If he doesn’t stop thinking he’s going to cream the inside of his jeans by the time they’re back at the bus. He controlled her, the last moments of her existence, and there’s something in that power that makes his veins roar.


	3. Chapter 3

The first night Brendon is back at home, he tries to make his own dinner. It’s an exercise in futility, of course. That he’s now a rockstar who’s been to half the states in America, and in a handful of other countries means nothing to his stove. Two sections of element are still missing, one still doesn’t turn on at all, the last has had his pot of soup on it for twenty minutes and still isn’t bubbling. 

The rest of the apartment is essentially the same. The carpets are still scratchy and stained, the walls still let in every last movement neighbours on every side make, the door still has three ineffective locks. When he first walked in everything was pretty dusty, three minutes of solid sneezing had made him run out and buy a handheld vacuum to suck it up. Considering that Brendon had half thought to find squatters -leaving behind rent with the landlord didn’t mean much when the landlord was an obvious crystal meth user- a thickly grey layer of dust on the couch didn’t bother him. 

The only real difference is now it doesn’t bother him. On the flight home Ryan was biting and brittle, which was to be expected. Brendon has had months of singing Camisado, he knows why Ryan isn’t happy. Spencer was surly too though, which had surprised him. Brendon would have thought Spencer would be happy to see his family, homesick for his cute little sisters and his parents. If Brendon had had family to see, he would have run from the terminal all the way home. 

As it is, he doesn’t have a family to drop in on, so he busies himself with cleaning a little more before giving up on his soup being anything but mildly warm. When he’s finished, he tidies up his supper mess and goes to bed. His shitty mattress isn’t much but it’s still better than the bunks. 

Now that he’s a rock star, Brendon doesn’t have to bustle from school to work and from work back home only to have the cycle repeat itself with band practice added in whenever needed. He’s got more free time than he’s used to and there’s only so much he can do to clean his apartment. He could always go off in search of someone to save. Vegas is the capital of vice and sin after all. But Brendon doesn’t want to push away the watchful grace he seems to be under. That means he usually ends up spending hours just spacing out while listening to music and wondering what everyone else is doing. He thinks about calling and talking to Spencer. Yet every time he actually goes to dial, he stops and decides that Spencer probably wants his privacy and some time to spend with his family, and instead flips his phone closed while he continues to listen to the white noise floating in the music.

They’ve still got mileage on Fever, Brendon knows. Their next tour is two months long, and they’ll probably have a few after that. Eventually though, they’ll need to make another CD. Brendon wants to write this calm into it. He wants songs with the messages the raindrops whisper to him. He can only personally save a handful, but if their lyrics can wash a sense of surety into others it will be like opening their eyes to God. If that means he has to battle Ryan for the right to write lyrics, he will. Until then, he will shower, and swim, and wait for the days where they tour in the rain. 

*

It’s like being an infant again. He is stuck here, being provided shelter, clothing, and food, on the provision that he have a loving bond with someone. That he’s dependent on such a piece of filth makes Ryan want to vomit, even cry, which only reinforces the concept. Ryan can’t remember the last time he vomited; not being a substance user he is fully in control of his body’s processes. He certainly can’t remember the last time he cried. 

The first thing he does upon landing in Las Vegas international airport is locate a tourist shop. He buys a calender, one with ‘scenic vistas’ and unzips one of his suitcases to tuck it in. He doesn’t say goodbye to either of his band mates. He’ll see Brendon when the next tour starts, and Spencer as soon as possible. He knows better than to expect his father to be waiting to drive him home - of course he knows better than to expect anything, ever. The cab ride drains what cash he has on him.

He didn’t realise, back when he was a university student, that going on one tour wouldn’t immediately launch him into stardom. A celebrity is both rich and famous, and currently Ryan -and the rest of Panic!- is only famous, as fame pertains to indie rock music. Certainly had he had more money, he would have stayed at a hotel. But he couldn’t afford one for three weeks, and since he was no longer a student at LVU his former housing wasn’t available. 

Twenty days. He just has to deal with staying in his old childhood room for twenty days and then he can go off and not have to come back. After this next tour there better be enough of a cash flow in his bank account because Ryan doesn’t plan on doing this again. He’s better than this.

When he’s finally finished lugging all his crap into the unkempt house and into the confines of his room, Ryan extracts the calendar from it’s temporary home in his suit case. It gets tacked to one of his bare walls. Counting down the days is a mite bit too childish for his tastes, but if inmates in prison do the same thing in anticipation of their parole dates then there must be some small use for the technique. Unlike the inmates though, Ryan doesn’t expect he’ll get rejected when his time to leave finally comes around.

Unsurprisingly, his father is drinking by the time he exits his room to find something to eat. Ryan doesn’t bother to wipe up the slight spills of whiskey over the kitchen counter. He’s not eight anymore, it’s no longer his job as ‘dad’s special helper’. His father goes as far as to gesture to the glasses cupboard and tell him to try some out, his treat. As though he’s being _generous_.

“I don’t drink.”

“Don’t lie to me, son. You’re a rockstar now. I know what happens, I watched that KISS documentary. How many pretty girls you knock up?” Every word is slurred, it’s obvious that he’s been drinking all day. Considering it’s a Tuesday, either his father called in sick or is unemployed. Ryan longs to take a razor and slice at his father’s tongue. Maybe a sharper tongue would help him enunciate.

Ryan grabs a box of cookies without looking at the picture, a soda, and climbs the stairs back to his room. Living somewhere that has appliances should have let him become capable of preparing a meal. Instead he’s back to eating like a child at a sleepover. In his room he sits and soothes himself with imagining grabbing the Drano under the kitchen sink and making his father a special mixed drink. He won’t, of course. That would be blatant to any criminal investigator, and Ryan isn’t in the habit of doing things that will get him noticed. But it’s a pretty image. First his father would start to gag, as the base of the chemical cleaner reacted to the natural stomach acid. Then he’d start to vomit nearly black blood, viscous with chunks of his stomach lining. He’d start crying blood, after his eyes hemorrhaged, followed by a unstoppable nose bleed. All in all, a bit more messy than Ryan’s normal waste removals. But family deserves something special, don’t they?

He won’t actually do it. That doesn’t mean he stops fantasizing about his father’s death. His usual procedures are a little too fast acting for what he’d need. It’s frustrating to be back to page one when he’s been so far ahead already, but Ryan does his best not to think about it and instead decides to consider it a challenge.

Researching for something that can kill after prolonged exposure occupies his time for the first couple of days. After that he sets about putting his plan into action. The calendar stays tacked up on his wall, the green landscape and blue sky doing it’s best to project calm and serenity. Giant black X’s delineate time and Ryan waits. 

*

Spencer understands a lot of choices his parents made. Living in the middle of suburbia is understandable, although it does get aggravating trying to explain that not _all_ of Nevada is The Strip. A two story house with a basement used to embarrass him when he compared it to the hovel Trevor lived in, but now that he’s got teenaged sisters it makes sense.

What he will never in his life understand is buying a house that doesn’t have locks on the doors. You can’t have a shower without someone bursting in and wanting to brush their teeth or use the toilet, you can’t use the really good sound system in the den without someone coming in to disparage your taste in music. As a child with nightmares Spencer had a few Incidences that Will Not Be Remembered before he learned to knock on his parent’s door. Most importantly, most terribly, Spencer can’t have privacy in his own room. It used to bother him when he was ten and Crystal and Jackie wanted him to play Barbies, it got worse when he turned thirteen and became too terrified of intruders to test out his new and interesting equipment. And it is fucking awful now. It’s downright ridiculous that he’s got more privacy on a tour bus than in his own house.

At least on the tour bus he didn’t have to worry about anyone rifling through his clothing. No one wanted to end up with him pissed off at them. Here though, his mom likes to just wander into his room when she’s off and spirit his clothes away to the laundry room. In the past while mildly annoying, it wasn’t a problem, but now it makes him nervous because he’s not sure what she’d think about his carefully folded special occasion clothing. Plus there’s no telling if the material might shrink in the dryer or not.

It means he has to wait till the house is empty before he’s able to wash anything by hand. It’s not like he can just shove a chair under the handle of the bathroom door. That just doesn’t work in real life no matter what the movies like to show. Not like it would help even if it did work. He can’t just leave his stuff hanging over the tub to drip dry. He’ll have to clear a place in his closet and lay a towel under. Thankfully, his mom never checks his closet for anything, just the hamper and the piles that sometimes pop up around it and she always places his clean laundry on his bed claiming he can put stuff away, he needs to do something, they’re his clothes after all.

Spencer guesses he could always just find a way to slip out and shop for something new. It’s not much of a solution though. That way he wouldn’t have to wash anything, but he’d still have the same problem of not having any privacy and people searching through his stuff. 

While he’s mildly grateful for the opportunity to clean everything -it had never really been a possibility on tour, not when even their normal clothes never got washed- it’s depressing that he hasn’t had an opportunity to wear anything fresh out. It’s stifling, knowing he’s got a closet full of clothes that fit him better then anything in a drawer. Summerlin is a smaller place, when he walks into convenience stores they give him free Slurpees because he’s famous, the biggest thing to happen. It’s probably like Avril Lavigne in Nappanee, although at least they don’t have any songs tacky enough to name drop their city. He’s got a face people notice, he can’t dress up and go any place near his house. 

Nor can he drive the twenty minutes and get lost in the anonymity of Las Vegas. Bouncers see a thousand underage teens an hour, and bust them all. At best he won’t get in, having his fake licence scoffed at and pushed back into his hand. At worst someone will get overly invested and call his fucking parents. The last thing Spencer needs is some well suited man watching him with hawk eyes until his _mother_ showed up to drive him back home.

So that leaves him back at square one. Tour can’t roll back around quick enough. He loves his family, but he’ll be happier when he’s not confined to just one skin for days on end with no type of escape present until tour starts. 

*

This fucking sucks ass. There’s nothing about being off tour that doesn’t suck major fucking ass. He fucking hates Cassie for being a vanilla sex bitch and kicking him out. He hates that the hotel room he’s rented for the three weeks until he’s back with Panic smells like piss, no matter how many joints he smokes. He hates that a bunch of the friends he thought were his and Cassie’s have apparently decided he’s the bad guy, resulting in him having no one’s couch to crash on and necessitating a motel room. He hates that he wakes up every morning at nine because he can hear the cleaning lady’s cart rattling, he hates that the continental breakfast is only toast that’s already cold by the time he’s in the side room, he hates that the packets of butter are the size of his thumbnail but he gets glared at if he takes more than a few.

Most of all, he hates that there are no groupies. In Chicago he’s not ‘the guy that can get someone close to The Academy’, and he’s not ‘the guy that replaced that guy in Panic At The Disco’. He’s just some guy, with the scruffy start of a beard and callouses on his fingers. Being just a guy makes it a lot harder to pick up sluts. 

That doesn’t mean it’s impossible. He just has to think out of the box a little. None of the places he usually goes to for a good time make the cut because he doesn’t want to have to answer questions or even get cornered about what he’s doing. He’d rather not get lectured about something he doesn’t even care to hear about.

Most of the places he scopes out are sleazy and the women who walk in and out are either cheep floozies looking for their next easy score or hookers looking for a place to mingle when they’re not on shift out on the corners. Both would be a snap to coerce away to someplace empty and quiet with just the lure of cash or drugs.

The first one Jon grins at in just the right way, letting her take the lead towards the front door. It’s better to let them think they’re in control, even if it goes against his personal interests. He whispers ‘twenty extra for rough sex?’ and her response is a firmly said ‘fifty’. Jon gives it without concern. He can always pluck it from her rapidly cooling fingers after. 

He fucks her hard, and she grunts and moans in pain, and the noises get Jon harder, even if he does suspect she’s partially faking them. She doesn’t fake the panic in her eyes when his hand goes to her throat. She starts struggling, Jon uses the hand not clamped on her neck to hold her arm to the brick, but it’s not enough, her free hand tries to shove him away. He’s got enough weight and height on her that it doesn’t matter, just leaning against her means she can’t get away. But nor can he get the right grip on her throat. It’s been long enough, longer than it was that glorious night on the couch in the bus, and she’s not passing out. 

Jon could let go of her arm, use a two handed approach. It wouldn’t matter if she flailed if she passed out. But she’s clawed him enough that his skin is probably under her whoreish glued on plastic nails, and it’s more than possible he’s in the system, he did some stupid things when he was younger. Besides, he walked to the bar, and he was seen going outside with her. All the risk factors hit him at once, much harder in his brain than the ineffectual punches she’s trying on his ribcage.

Fucking hell. He can’t kill her. It’s too risky, there are too many things that could trap him. He slumps against her. Jon keeps fucking her as her face starts to get pale under the pounds of slathered on make-up, but it’s less exciting. He’s not in _control_ , her goddamn fingernails have taken his choices from him. He loosens his grip a little bit, her ragged gasp is enough to keep him hard. He can at least scare her, even if he can’t go all the way.

After he comes, he lets her keep the money. There’s no sense in trying to get it back. She did her job, stood there and let him use her like he wanted. He vows to figure it out later. He’s pretty sure Brendon’s been doing the same thing, he must have hints for how to keep the power in an experience. Until he gets the chance to ask, fucking them and terrifying them will have to do. It’s better than nothing, at least. 

*

It’s raining outside and Brendon’s trying his best not to be distracted. They’re on the bus on their way to their first venue of the new tour and the four of them are all crammed on the couch in the lounge. Ryan’s still wound up over staying with his dad and Spencer’s oddly twitchy for some unknown reason. Jon keeps stealing glances at Brendon that he probably doesn’t think Brendon’s noticing. And that is actually probably the only reason he’s not giving the rain all of his attention. Jon wants to talk about something. Yet, he’s not saying anything. Which means there’s only one thing he wants to mention and it’s not something to just be casually brought up.

Eventually Ryan gets up to write somewhere quieter. Brendon’s hoping that maybe some of those words hold tokens of hope and light in them, but he’s not really expecting them to. After that, Spencer leaves in the direction of the bunks and Jon slides closer to Brendon on the couch. He should say something, but the rain outside gets heavier and his thoughts start trying to catch the muted words that are falling on the landscape blurring around them. His hand’s lightly tracing the condensation on the window when Jon finally speaks.

“I need your advice,” he says, low volume doing nothing to mask the need in his voice.

“Uh, okay?” Brendon can’t remember the last time someone actually asked for his advice. It might have been in choir when he was still in school, which kind of says something about the person he is. But if Jon wants his help, he’ll do his best. He concentrates on his bassist, doing his best to let the words fall into the ether. If it’s important they’ll repeat it again, he’s sure of it.

“You remember that-” Jon turns, arching his back to look in the direction of the bunks before turning back, “ _thing_ we did just before end of tour? Where we hung out with that girl, and then showed her the river?”

“Yes?” for a brief moment Brendon had hoped that Jon was following the same words of God, but Jon hadn’t said anything about what the river was whispering, so Brendon hadn’t brought it up either. They hadn’t talked about it at all during the last few days before everyone had gone home.

“Well. Uh. In Chicago I hung out with a lot of women, but I didn’t really know how to show them the river properly. So I had to stop hanging out with them. I was hoping you could tell me? Or even show me? We’ve got a bit of time between the show and bus call tomorrow night?”

Brendon nods, because maybe Jon’s doing God’s work as well and if he needs help who is Brendon to say no? God did say “ask and you shall receive.” And if Jon isn’t following the light and grace of God then maybe Brendon can convert him to the cause. Either way he’s not going to say no.

Jon fidgets for a second or two before smiling at him and getting up to check in on Spencer or Ryan. Brendon goes back to listening in on the rain while trying to parse out how to show Jon the brilliance of saving someone by bathing them in the light of Christ. Two people will be harder to choreograph than just one but it will be easier to move any evidence after if they need to.

The more he thinks about it though, the more he realises he needs details. Brendon knows what God told him to do, but Jon’s instructions might be different. Who is he to get in the way of Jon’s personal path? He waits hours, drinking enough Redbull to keep him up for days. Spencer and Jon crash fairly early but Ryan is more difficult, awake long past when Brendon has begun to yawn. By sheer obstinacy Brendon manages to out last the lyricist, Ryan strips down and crawls into his bunk while Brendon is playing Tetris on his phone to keep his mind alert. He waits until he can hear Ryan’s muffled snoring before he enters the area himself and starts to shake Jon awake.

“What?”

Brendon ignores the snapping tone and asks anyway. “What were you normally doing in Chicago?”

Jon groans. “Do we need to do this now?”

“If you want to do it tomorrow, then we need to talk about it now, yeah.” Brendon’s already beginning to see Jon’s problem, he has no foresight for it.

“I found some bitch that would follow me, I’d fuck her whether she liked it or not, and I’d try to strangle her. But like I said, I didn’t know how to get rid of her afterwards, so I had to keep stopping. It got really fucking annoying. How do you get rid of them after you have your fun? Is that river thing your normal thing?”

Brendon winces slightly when Jon says the word fun because he doesn’t follow his calling for fun. Maybe this was a bad idea but he’s not going to back away now. 

“It’s not about having fun. And it’s not always a river. I just try to be careful and not touch anything or leave marks. The water does all the work. It knows what it’s doing. The river was the safest bet with all the evidence that could have been left.”

It’s too dark to really make out if Jon’s staring at him or falling back to sleep. Brendon should be sleeping himself because tomorrow will be busy but he can’t just yet.

“If you’re serious about helping them then you have to stop sleeping with them. It leaves too much behind.”

“You’re saying I have to pick between fucking them and killing them?” Before Brendon can clarify that he doesn’t kill them, he helps them, Jon sighs. “Motherfuck. Fine. No more sex. Seriously though, can the rest of it wait until tomorrow? Jetlag’s a bitch.”

Brendon gives him the go ahead and brushes his teeth before he climbs in the last empty bunk. Hopefully once Jon is submerged he’ll hear it. It’s the only thing Brendon can hope for, he certainly can’t leave Jon alone to get caught and arrested. If they lost a second bass player Ryan might be driven mad, and at the very least it would make Panic! look bad. Brendon can’t afford that. 

*

Ryan can’t remember the last time he had such a flood of relief. It’s probably because relief implies gratitude about escaping a situation, and he’s not one to bow and simper at someone’s feet. But this is different. This isn’t him reluctantly thanking Brent for bringing a competent musician that would draw a female audience into the band. This is being happy that the things he had set in motion are now working optimally. If anything he’d have to be grateful to himself, which is acceptable.

For one, the concerts are going well. A lot of the audience is singing back their words, which means CD sales and merchandise will go up soon. Jon is a thousand times better than Brent ever was, which truly isn’t saying much, but still matters on stage, when they don’t have an entire day to record one song. 

For another, Brendon has found a friend in Jon. It has multiple positives; he’s more likely to drag Jon into yet another viewing of a Disney movie than force Ryan into it, he doesn’t bother him to know what lyrics he’s composing because he wants to fuck around on one of Jon’s guitars instead. Ryan isn’t certain where they’ve been going almost every night after their shows, but since neither is coming back drunk he doesn’t care. Not that Jon is a sober person, he’s nearly positive Jon smokes pot. But he’s not nearly as pathetic about it as all the students at his university, so Ryan usually doesn’t want to hurt him.

Primarily though, Ryan is relieved to be in a place where he can practice his art. Not show off his lyrics, or play his rhythms, though those are important and can even be fun at times. Being on tour means random stops in random cities, and that means he can do what he’s meant to do. 

He doesn’t go out every time they’re free. But he does find himself out and about more than last tour. Everything is down to an exact science now. Ryan’s always sure of which bar or club he can slip into without being noticed and slip out again with nary any trace being left behind. He never stays to watch if his concoctions get picked up or poured out but he does try to watch the online versions of the local papers. Nine times out of ten there’s the mention of foul play but no one even solves anything and it gets chalked up as nothing. 

Sometimes he dreams about just lacing all of the drinks in a random bar but that would be too much. Part of the beauty of it is in the fact that any of the sorry people can pick it up and be the agent of their own demise. It’s like Russian roulette only they don’t know they’re playing and there’s never a chance for them to win.

So he keeps to his normal approach and continues to dole out judgment to those who deserve it. Everything is going well and he’s not at home anymore. Life is good.

*

Spencer wears his own skin for a while. For a week or so he doesn’t need anything else. He had expected to want to change as soon as he got back into the tour bus, had thought to stay up latest of them all and lock -fucking _lock_ \- the bathroom door and just perch on the closed lid of the toilet and revel in wearing a skirt. But he’d fallen asleep before Ryan and Brendon, who’d seem to have been having an unsaid contest, depriving himself of that chance. And the next day he’d been able to play, and it was like every bit of tension that had built up in the three weeks at home had been driven out through the movements of his arms. 

Then something happens. Spencer’s not sure why he’s so surprised, something _always_ happens to interrupt happiness and contentment. Maybe in the back of his mind he knew, but he certainly didn’t expect it in the form of Ryan hanging up his cellphone and announcing that his father was dead before retreating to his bunk.

Spencer’s expecting some sort of display of emotion from Ryan, but there’s nothing. When he asks, Ryan says he’s not going back for the funeral, everything can be arranged by phone and that they can continue as is. It maybe freaks him out a lot because drunk asshole or not Mr. Ross is -was- Ryan’s dad and that usually means something. 

Jon and Brendon are worried and they won’t stop asking him what they need to do. And fuck if Spencer knows. Ryan keeps secluding himself and Spencer’s just waiting for the breakdown that hasn’t happened just yet. Why is it that as soon as things seem to go smoothly shit happens that he’s not sure how to deal with but has to anyways?

A few days in he says fuck it. To hell with all of it, he’s not spending another night sitting in his bunk without even headphones on because he wants to be able to hear if Ryan starts crying. Bus call is midnight, their show is over at ten, there’s a bar down the street. He tells Brendon and Jon to listen carefully but not intrude unless they actually hear wailing, grabs his pre-packed messenger bag and walks until he’s inside the lobby of the club and letting them stamp a bear claw on his hand in UV paint. Spencer’s absurdly grateful for that, if it’s only visible under certain lights Ryan won’t see it and feel betrayed about the bar thing.

It’s pretty easy to change in the handicapped stall, the space is actually larger than the bathroom on the bus. He does his best to not put his stockinged foot on the navy speckled tile, but even three weeks of late nights at his parent’s house hasn’t taught him to balance perfectly trying to get high heels on. He tugs on the hem of his skirt and then on the waist of it, and makes sure his breasts are sitting properly. 

Stepping nearer the sinks he feels better. It’s a unisex bathroom, and he’s one of three women fixing -in his case, putting on- make up. The more components he adds, the better he feels. With each addition he’s one step further from the boy that needs to be worried about his best friend having a mental breakdown on stage. He’s just another gorgeous, anonymous woman.

When he’s finished he takes his messenger bag to the bag check. He’d like to keep it with him but the press of bodies might make it hard to move around with the added bulk of his stuff swinging from his arm. After that he tries to decide if he wants to get lost in the sea of people or if he wants to lean against one of the bar’s edges and watch for a bit. 

Spencer thinks about it for a second, and ends up purposefully walking towards the bar. A slightly tipsy college aged guy stumbles into him and blushes through a stammered apology before calling him beautiful and offering to make up for the jostle. Spencer smiles and turns the guy down. Bump or not the guy is sweet and not his type. 

He’s leaning up against the end of the bar watching people slide against each other. There’s this one guy not far from him who keeps sneaking glances his way. Spencer’s careful to not look back, he wants someone that has more nerve than consideration. The guy eventually comes over, passing him an opened lite beer before asking him what she’s doing all by herself. 

Somehow the words tumble out of his mouth. “I don’t want to be alone. My friend’s father just died, and everything seems so much scarier now.” It’s too true for what tonight is supposed to be, Spencer just barely holds back the scowl that wants to come out at his own stupidity. No sense in ruining his persona even more with an ugly look.

“I’ll protect you, honey.”

Spencer wants to laugh in his face. Protect him from what? Death? Who the fuck does he think he is? Not to mention when Spencer tilts the bottle in the mirrored light of the bar he can see the pill not quite dissolved in the bottom. A date rapist. He’s perfect. He doesn’t do as much as hold the bottle to his tightly pursed lips, unsure of how much of it needs to be consumed for it to work. Instead he throws himself at the man. “Would you?”

“How ‘bouts I take you home, and we both curl up together against anything big and bad?”

“That would mean a lot to me,” Spencer says. It’s the truth after all. It will.

*

It’s been over three weeks since Brendon showed him his method and Jon has to admit that drowning has its advantages. Even if his skin itched to start with because he wasn’t in control. Brendon had actually stepped down and let him push the girl under, just standing near with his head tilted to the side like he was listening to some inaudible voice with lyrics from some old gospel song being muttered from his lips like some form of a prayer. If Brendon noticed him being more about the choking than the actual drowning he didn’t mention it.

The killing is good though and the power of it makes Jon light headed and a heady feeling of euphoria tends to spread through his veins but it’s not enough to take the edge of everything off all the way. He misses sex. It took him a week of jerking off to the memories of their first murder, the girl trying to fight but not being able to find purchase from her awkward position, for him to actually come to the conclusion that while murdering definitely did it for him, he needed more than that. 

Ever since having that first moment of realisation it hasn’t gone away. The need to fuck continues to spiral in his head. It doesn’t even have to be _while_ he’s murdering, although it would be nice. The problem is, he’s not sure he has that line anymore. Every time he jerks off he thinks about her body finally going slack. He’s not sure he could walk away from a hooker the way he did in Chicago, money exchanged for services rendered.

“B-Den,” he calls from his bunk one day. By the time he’s sitting up and wiping his hand off on a tissue Brendon is pulling back the curtain. 

“Yeah?”

Jon makes sure to say it in their code. It’s not ridiculous, they don’t have hand signals and a thousand word vocabulary. But they’re near Spencer and Ryan all the time, it’s simply necessary to have a way to talk about the other stuff they do without being found out. “So, the next time we hang out with a girl I think I’m going to hook up with her.”

“You can’t!” Jon narrows his eyes, crosses his arms when he notices his hands have curled into fists. Even though he wants to hit Brendon for trying to control the situation, it would bring up too many questions from the other half of the band. 

“Jonny, I’m sorry, but you really can’t. It’s not the way. And people might find out.”

Jon glares at Brendon, trying to show him without the words he can’t say or the actions he can’t use just how fucking unimpressed he is with Brendon’s attempt at a powerplay. “Look, Brendon. I’m fucking _someone_ , and chances are high that after I get laid, I’ll probably end up taking them to the lake. So you should just show me how to do it the best way, so no one gets pissed off.”

Brendon shakes his head resolutely. “Jon, seriously. I’m not going to help you with this, I don’t want to show you. I won’t. It’s not the way.”

Okay, so Jon gets that Brendon kills women for different reasons than he does. He had his suspicions the first time, last tour. And the three women they’ve done since only make it more obvious. But he’s not going to let Brendon cock-block him, for any reason. “Brendon, seriously,” he replies, mockingly, “I’m going to fuck someone. So unless you have a better idea...”

Jon’s not expecting Brendon to lean in close and quickly press their lips together. Unexpected or not, Jon can totally work with this. Brendon’s already shown that he’s okay with Jon taking over as long as none of the women get fucked. And there’s no way Jon’s going to kill Brendon now, when he’s probably the only reason neither of them have gotten caught yet. It’s not the solution Jon would have personally come up with. But hey, it might turn out to be better than any of the alternatives. 

*

The several weeks after Jon and his private conversation have been pretty eye opening for Brendon. Sex has always been something that just existed around him. Sure jerking off felt good, but Brendon’s never actually felt the need to do that very often. Maybe it’s because of his upbringing or maybe he’s just wired wrong. He doesn’t know and doesn’t really dwell on it. 

Now though, it’s like he’s submerged in it whenever he’s alone with Jon. Every once in awhile he has to just stop and breathe and tell himself that he got himself into this. It’s not like the sex is damning him any more than he’s already done to himself to start with. But it’s still new to him and while it feels good and so bright at times it’s also something he doesn’t really need to be complete. All he really needs is the music and to save those in need of it. Jon on the other hand apparently needs more than just that and it’s just another thing Brendon can’t say no to. So far it hasn’t been too bad. But he’s expecting it to escalate pretty soon because Jon’s nothing if not impatient.

Brendon still picks out the girls. He has to, Jon has no eye for it. If anything, Brendon knows Jon would go after the sluts, like Brendon’s first, misguided kill of Christa. It’s not always the cross around their neck that gives it away, plenty of girls wear them that don’t mean it. He has less time to analyse now, not everyone can be Annie when Jon needs a girl a week. But it wouldn’t be safe anyway, to go after more crew members. That was a one time only deal. Girls that drive three hours to catch a concert and never go back home are better, safer.

Brendon lets the words flow through him and Jon dunks her in the water. He knows his hands are on her neck, not her shoulders, but he knows it’s truly the water that’s helping, not a lack of air. Jon can think what he wants of it, Brendon _knows_ what happens as she transforms from body to spirit.

Jon comes out of the water hard, soaks handprints onto Brendon’s shoulderblades as he pulls him to him. Brendon lets him. They should be making sure Lisa is arranged properly but Jon’s not going to let him go just yet. 

The kiss is demanding and forceful and Brendon just stands pliantly still letting Jon do as he pleases. When one of Jon’s hands begins to wander down to his ass Brendon finally urges his palms up to lightly push at Jon’s chest.

“We need to finish up and go. Doing this here will only make a mess.”

Jon doesn’t really look happy. In fact, it’s likely that he’s thinking about pushing Brendon to the ground and just fucking him right here mere feet from Lisa’s now empty vessel. That can’t happen though, because that would leave prints in places and Brendon doesn’t want to have to deal with the added variables. He has to keep trying to pull away three times before Jon finally releases his grip on Brendon’s shirt and starts to help him with clean up.

Their trip back to the hotel is silent. Jon’s driving and his right hand hasn’t left Brendon’s thigh the whole drive back like he’s making sure Brendon’s not thinking about trying to jump out of the car to get away from him. Brendon’s not going to do that. There’s probably never going to be a reason for him to try as long as Jon doesn’t try to go after the women. 

They manage to slip into their room without anyone coming out to investigate. Brendon was sure Ryan didn’t approve of them going off to have sex with some groupie after the show but it’s not like Brendon can say no to Jon. Brendon might be able to be content over only saving a few over a longer period of time. However, Jon is a lot more zealous and Brendon finds himself following along in his wake.

The moment the door shuts, Brendon’s back hits the wood panelling of the door when Jon presses up close. They’re kissing again and Brendon shuts himself off and just lets Jon do whatever he wants. They have a show in the evening so there’s a good chance he won’t be pushed to his knees because Ryan can be scary when he’s mad and he’d be furious if Brendon’s voice was fucked up in the morning. Not even Jon’s willing to stand up to that.

He’s belatedly aware of being tugged over to one of the beds and undressed but it doesn’t register until his back touches the scratchy cotton of the sheets. Jon presses him into the mattress with one hand while his other makes quick work of prepping him. It’s not going to be enough. Jon’s too impatient to be thorough. Brendon doesn’t say anything. 

Jon rolls on the condom and pushes in. It hurts but Brendon just goes with it. It’s not unbearable and he can probably become accustomed to it, maybe grow to like it eventually. Jon’s not exactly careful and his fingers will leave bruises. Brendon’s sure the only reason neither of his hands come up to his neck is once again because Ryan would have both of their heads. Instead, Jon loosely cups a palm over his mouth and moves faster. When he’s finished, he moves off of Brendon and falls asleep.

Brendon takes the opportunity to move to the bathroom and turn the dials on the shower. The side of the tub makes it too low to have a bath, but standing under a torrent of water is just as good. It’s not so much the sweat and the saliva, Brendon’s had the chance on tour to be much dirtier than he is now. But there’s a possibility that the drops will speak to him, and if they tell him about his righteousness it will make him feel far better than any orgasm could.

*

Ryan likes the way he looks with eyeliner. It makes his eyes bigger, broodier, a quality which many of Panic’s female fans seem to appreciate. He likes to draw on his face with paints and shadows. Aside from looking fantastic, it also does much to separate him from the plebeians. Which makes it a bit conflicting when Brendon tries the same. He wants Panic to have an aesthetic that sells, but he hardly wants Brendon on the same level as himself. 

So when he digs through his make up container -it’s the size of a tool box, but neither red nor metal- and finds a lip gloss missing, and a packet of eyeshadow with the applicator replaced with the once white tip facing the left instead of the right, Ryan knows whom to blame. He storms into the lounge and demands to know what right Brendon has using his stuff without even asking. Brendon shakes his head and claims innocence, and Jon immediately begins to cover for him, saying he was with him all day. 

Ryan doesn’t think of himself having a short fuse. But it’s highly aggravating for Brendon to be lying to his face and have it be believable. Normally it’s easy to catch Brendon in a lie, he’s still so pathetically innocent even half way through a third tour. With an apparent witness though, Ryan can’t do anything. 

He hasn’t gotten to rid the world of it’s more useless members lately. After returning from his father’s he had a bit of a spree, in hindsight it had been a bit much. He’d stopped though, once his long distance cure had worked. The last thing he needed was a trail of deaths following the same pattern of their tour, leading back to a member of the tour’s father. Not that he had much faith in the ability of police to do their jobs, but one must be careful. Confidence was an important quality, cockiness he could not afford. Luckily it was a situation that was easily remedied with cutting back. 

Tonight though Ryan needs to let off steam and it’s been long enough since his last outing that he should be allowed this. If he can’t lash out at Brendon then he’ll have to find someway to get his aggression out. Luckily he’s already used to one sure way to bleed out the emotion.

It’s easy to slip out and find a nicely packed bar with people in it who won’t notice him. He spends a little time standing at the edge of part of the mass of stupidity and filth just watching. Usually he would take the time to scope the place out more thoroughly than to check for camera placement and all of the other exits. For some reason though he’s being slow about getting on with his activities for the night.

He’s walking close to the bartop, trying to decide what colour of drink he feels like dropping his mixture in when Ryan sees him. Spencer is sitting on one of the high stools. Yes, it’s strange that he’s resting his head on the shoulder of a greasy looking man in an even greasier looking black leather jacket. Ryan didn’t even know Spencer was gay, although looking back at the evidence over the years he probably shouldn’t be too surprised. And yes, it’s peculiar that Spencer’s wearing a dress, high cut at the neck but fully making up with the short hemline, made even more revealing by the way his legs are displayed on the stool. And when he peers closer, it appears that Spencer is wearing his stolen makeup. Ryan is disappointed. It’s downright rude to have borrowed without asking. Spencer should have known that had he inquired, Ryan would have let him borrow it.

It’s none of those that truly catch Ryan’s attention. What really concerns Ryan is that he has a Raspberry Smirnoff cooler in his hand. He thought Spencer was better than that. Spencer was supposed to be above humanity and it’s filth. Spencer was supposed to be a mere step down from him, only made so by the fact that he’s burdened with compassion and caring towards all the unworthy surrounding him. 

He’s about to approach and demand that Spencer give it back to the bartender immediately -if Brendon is useless enough to drink so be it, but Spencer will not be sullied- when the man gestures and Spencer hops off the stool, pulling his dress as he does so. Ryan needs to make a decision, stay and rid the world of just one more body polluting it, or leave and find out what exactly Spencer thinks he’s doing. Truly, if he thinks he needs alcohol to hook up with a man, well, Ryan would be willing to let Spencer suck him off. 

It’s not much of a decision. He keeps the chloroform in his pocket and stays back several careful feet as Spencer and the disgusting man walk several blocks to a near by car park. Ryan knows better than to follow them into it. Since he doesn’t have a car to climb inside it will look like he’s loitering, and Spencer might spot him.

It’s from feet away that Ryan sees things take a turn. He can’t see much, but it looks like the greasy man goes for Spencer’s faked breast. In return, Spencer grabs the man by his slick ponytail and forces his head against the steering wheel multiple times. The inside of the windshield gets spattered with drops of blood, and Ryan can’t help an undignified wince. 

*

Spencer breathes heavily once, the scent of blood and bone wafting into his nostrils. It smells like a job well accomplished. He steps out of the car, careful to open the door without touching it with bare fingers. The fabric of his dress isn’t stretchy, but it has just enough give to make it an acceptable momentary glove.

“There are better ways to go about that,” he hears. He doesn’t register the words or the tone, just the bare fact of someone near enough to speak to him. If they’re close enough to talk they must have been close enough to have seen that. God only knows what he’s going to do, he doesn’t have anything on him heavy enough to take out the witness. Unless he can use his stiletto heel to gouge out the man’s eye? It should distract him long enough that Spencer can ram his head into the car, or the brick wall surrounding the car park on three sides.

He kicks off his Guess heels, takes a moment to wince at both the feel of bare feet on cold pavement and at how his hose are definitely going to snag before stalking forward with the shoe in hand, sole out. 

“Spencer, don’t be an idiot.” It’s a phrase he’s heard many times and it works to plant him closer to reality. 

“Ryan?”

“What you did was horrifically messy, but I understand the motivations behind it. Honestly, I’m rather impressed, I didn’t think you had it in you. I suggest we leave now. That wretched bar didn’t have security cameras, but I have no idea if this lot does. In the future, I’ll monitor the surrounding area as well.”

“What? In the future?” Spencer’s eyes still aren’t fully adjusted to the moonlight, Wylan had had the light on in the car. He can’t see Ryan’s expression, but it doesn’t sound like he’s freaking out about seeing his best friend kill someone.

“Put your shoes on. If you get ill from this I will not be happy.”

Ryan starts to walk off and Spencer slips his feet back into his heels so he can catch up. They go left one street over from the car park and Ryan continues in a straight line but Spencer veers off in the direction of the local park. The outdoor bathrooms stay open twenty four hours, or that’s what the plaque drilled into the brick had read earlier when he’d approached the building.

The handle to the women’s restroom turns when he tries it. It’s not locked. Nor is it occupied by anyone. Spencer slips his heels off again and climbs up on the lip of the toilet in the last stall and fishes his bag from it’s hiding spot on the ledge of the ventilation window. Instead of changing in the stall, he drags his messenger bag out with him. There’s no sense in switching clothes before he knows for sure if he’d smudge blood on his other clothing. There’s not a lot, some on the hand that was holding his hair, some on his shoulders from the spray back. He takes off his dress and uses it to turn on the tap, gets the fabric wet and gives himself a quick sponge bath. It’s a shame he’ll have to destroy the dress, it looked really nice on him. At least he’d somehow had the presence of mind or sheer luck to grab his shoe in the hand that wasn’t wet with blood. Spencer probably would have cried had he had to set the heels on fire too. 

*

Jon really likes having sex with Brendon. He thinks Brendon’s probably the best lay of his life. Brendon’s like Cassie used to be, before she turned into a fucking bitch. He’s got all her best qualities without any of the things that ruined their relationship. Ie: Brendon’s not a crazy whore. 

After they’re done with a girl, Brendon won’t let him fuck him. He says it would leave too much evidence, and Jon knows he’s probably right, Brendon’s good at knowing how to get away with things. But he’ll kiss him. They can stand in the mud with the stupid shower caps around their shoes that Brendon makes them wear if it looks too soggy and make out for what seems like forever. Jon leads the kiss, as he should, but Brendon kisses back enthusiastically, tongue and lips and teeth letting Jon know that he wants it. 

It’s not only after a kill that they’re together though. Brendon’s gotten more affectionate lately, curling against him in the lounge so they can watch movies or sing Disney songs. Even if they haven’t had the chance to shower in a few days, Brendon somehow always smells like pear shampoo and citrusy bodywash. They keep their kissing to a minimum in the lounge, Spencer likes to bitch about Public Displays of Affection being unwanted. Brendon tends to counter with ‘better the public of the bus then the public of a mall’, and Spencer generally shuts up. Panic’s gay enough without everyone in the world knowing that it has two gay members. 

Fucking is different, of course. Brendon’s got an ass instead of a cunt. It’s difficult to remember sometimes, that Brendon can’t take care of himself, that he won’t automatically be wet and ready for Jon to sink into. But the longer they’re together, the more Jon realises it matters. Not just for his own thrill, though Jon knows from painful experience that trying to fuck a guy dry doesn’t feel good. It takes a bit of monitoring, but the more Jon fingers Brendon beforehand, the more he groans and pants when they fuck. If he only does it enough to make it possible to fuck him Brendon is silent and stiff as a board. 

Brendon’s definitely different, because for the first time since Cassie Jon finds himself caring if Brendon gets off. Okay, maybe he didn’t the first few times. But he pleads the fifth, or the eighth, or whatever number means that he was still in the mindset that everyone that he fucked was an evil whore, and all that mattered was getting his own off. Now he sees clearer. It’s important that Brendon get off when Jon’s fucking him. He probably won’t ever beg for it -Cassie used to be vocal- but Brendon grew up a different way, he’s got morals. Jon can try to cater to that shit, at least a bit, work Brendon out of it slowly. They’ve got time. 

Because that’s the thing. He knows they have time. He thought that he and Cassie had time, but she ended up being a worthless whore. But Jon knows, _knows_ that he and Brendon will be together forever. They can’t leave each other, they know each other’s secrets.


	4. Chapter 4

Touring in Australia is the same as touring in other places, except for the kangaroos and koalas. Brendon’s maybe falling in love with the wildlife. Not that he’s actually got the time to really enjoy it or the ocean. This tour is supposed to be short and probably even a tad bit rushed. Jon’s not really happy about that. Brendon doesn’t care. He’s on an island surrounded by water, most everything else in his head just sits in the background to that one fact.

Today’s Ryan’s birthday though, so Brendon’s trying his best to pay attention instead of straining to hear the waves far off in the distance. They’re too far away for him to truly hear but he imagines their whispers and calls constantly none the less. 

“What kind of party do you think we should have?” he asks, chin on Jon’s shoulder. It’s almost September on this glorious island, which means it’s the middle of spring. They could totally do something outside instead of staying cooped on their bus. Or they could go to a club and dance, Ryan would get a ton of people throwing themselves on him. Jon’s introduced him to certain ways to relax, things that seem to make Jon happy and content. Brendon’s not sure if Ryan’s ever been happy, or content. Jon’s method might be the best way. 

“I’m pretty sure that Ryan doesn’t want a party.”

“But it’s his _birthday_!” 

“Bren, if anything happens I’ll bet Spencer drags him off somewhere so they can have best friends forever time.”

Jon’s hand ruffles through his hair and that’s the end of the conversation. The hours of the day tick away and by the time it’s really late, Spencer does indeed drag Ryan off somewhere. Brendon’s left to stare at the wrapped present he got Ryan, the one he hasn’t been sure if he wants to give him. The two of them aren’t exactly the chummiest of close friends and Brendon’s not really sure Ryan would want a gift. 

He’s just straightening out from placing the gift back into it’s hiding place in his suitcase when Jon presses up behind him. Months ago the feeling would have been foreign and mostly unwanted, but Brendon’s used to it by now. And it’s not as bad as it was to start with. It’s not as perfect as when he can listen to the water sing to him, but it’s far away the closest thing to second best he’s got. Jon has this uncanny way of making him feel everything and Brendon has no defence against that. 

Jon wraps his arms around Brendon’s waist and nips at the back of his neck before turning Brendon in his arms so they can kiss. Kissing is something Brendon’s finding he’s actually fond of. There’s something warm and comforting about the pressure and weight of Jon’s lips on his. It’s easy to just let that feeling mask everything else, the tiny ball of unease that continually eats into itself that tells him he shouldn’t be enjoying this and whatever small voice that is in his head at the moment that keeps whispering words of disapproval into his ear. 

They continue kissing and one of Jon’s hands slides from tightly gripping his hair to lightly press against Brendon’s dick. His jeans make the touch rough and slightly uncomfortable but it’s on just the right side of bright that he’s become used to. Once Jon got it into his head that he wanted them both to enjoy sex, he started finding as many ways as possible to pull Brendon along for the ride instead of just letting him coast in the wake of Jon’s own pleasure.

Whatever control Brendon once had has already slipped from his fingers. Part of him is angry and unpleased and keeps badgering him that _this is not the way_ , but every other part of him is happy that he’s not alone and he’s found something of a kindred spirit in Jon. God wouldn’t have put Jon right in the middle of his path for no reason at all. He just _wouldn’t have_. 

The sex isn’t something he would have imagined liking though, and there are still times when Jon gets hasty and Brendon forgets and drifts, letting whatever is going on around him fade out into nothing. But more often than not, Jon does his best to force Brendon back into his head so he’s present and accounted for. In those instances it doesn’t matter what’s the proper response and what isn’t, all that exists is the intensity and this feeling of belonging that Brendon hasn’t had for such a long period of time. He’s maybe a little starved for it.

Jon’s hand presses harder against his dick. The pain gains his attention and Brendon tries his best not to slip back into the safety of his inner thoughts. When Brendon tries to focus, Jon kisses him again just as roughly as every other time and starts to manoeuvre them in the direction of Ryan’s bunk. Jon’s is still destroyed and damp with sweat from earlier, sheets strewn haphazardly. They know from experience that it’s difficult if not impossible to have sex on Brendon’s top bunk. Brendon goes willingly to their guitarist’s bed. Even if he wasn’t hard and interested there’s no point in trying to battle the small things. He knew telling Jon they wouldn’t have time to save a girl would make him more aggressive in other ways. If getting fucked every few hours while Ryan and Spencer sit in the lounge and pretend to not notice is the price Brendon has for not getting arrested it’s little to pay.

His pants are pulled down to his knees before the slowly tilting kiss ends up with him losing his balance and falling onto Ryan’s bed. Brendon can’t help but notice that his pillow smells like vanilla as Jon quickly tugs his jeans off the rest of the way. He slips Brendon’s shirt off, but lets him keep his socks on. Brendon’s feet are almost always cold and Jon doesn’t like the shock it gives him when Brendon’s legs curl around him, heels digging into his ass. 

Brendon hopes that Jon’s not spilling drops of their strawberry lube on the sheets when he slicks up his hand, but knows better than to say something. If it does drip that means he’s using a lot, which means this is going to be one of times that Brendon can give in and enjoy himself. The first finger is an intrusion, it always is. But rather than another roughly added finger, a rapidfire second intrusion that makes him drift away until Jon’s done, Jon just curls his finger and bends down awkwardly in the small space to start sucking a hickey onto his inner thigh. It’s equal parts sexy and ticklish, Jon’s tongue has him squirming, though he couldn’t say if asked whether he was trying to move away or closer.

Jon’s mouth relocates to his collarbone when he enters him. It’s low enough that it won’t show in any concert costume, but present enough to make Jon feel in charge, and Brendon knows the importance of that. He bites his lip as Jon starts pounding into him, but Jon either sees or remembers his feelings, because he slows down and starts aiming for a place that makes it better. Brendon gasps as Jon finds it, gasps again as Jon speeds up to his previous pace but keeps the same aim. It’s a torrent, a rushing tsunami that makes him swear he can hear his own sweat singing at him. He can also hear Jon murmuring _mine, mine, mine_. He doesn’t reply, but he doesn’t disagree either. He just sinks into the feeling of it, and thanks God for always doing his best for him. 

*

Ryan wants Spencer’s birthday to be perfect. He has had weeks to look at every aspect of the event, plan out for every possible eventuality. He knows what he’s doing -of course- and over the last few months on tour and at home he’s had enough time to see Spencer’s work to know wherein the challenges lie and how to swerve around them. Everything is planned out precisely, and Ryan is ready.

Really, he owes Spencer a perfect birthday. When they got back from his birthday, Brendon had left a journal on his bunk, and Jon, still tousled and in his boxers from his dalliances with Brendon had popped out of Brendon’s bunk and given him a copy of The White Album. Both presents were somewhat generic, but better than anything he’d ever gotten from Brent or Trevor, or any other sad excuse for a ‘friend’ in school. Everything the fans had sent had been tossed unopened, Ryan doesn’t want anything from little girls except for them to worship him and provide the opportunity for his band to continue playing.

But Spencer. Spencer was the one that had really gotten him something meaningful. Spencer woke him up far too early in the morning waving the smallest size of gift bag in his face. It was no more than a few inches by a few inches, the top of the slate blue bag tufted with grey tissue paper. Ryan had grumbled about not asking for any presents, he and Spencer both knowing he would have been upset had Spencer followed through on Ryan’s supposed wish. 

Under the layer of tissue paper was a small vial, filled with white powder. Ryan’s eyes had narrowed. It looked like cocaine, and Spencer knew better than that.

“It’s a hundred and fifty milligrams. That means you can take out someone as fat as two hundred and twenty pounds!” Spencer explained, straddling Ryan’s stomach and smiling at him with his head awkwardly tilted against the top of the bunk.

“What?”

“Toxicity levels say one and a half milligrams for each kilogram, I got a hundred and fifty, so you should be able to take out someone a hundred kilograms, which is two twenty pounds for those of us that like imperial.” Spencer grinned. “Happy birthday, fucker.”

“What?” Ryan asked again. He sounded stupid, but he didn’t quite understand what Spencer was saying. 

“I got you cyanide! I figured it was more your style than the other stuff I could get, I figured you wouldn’t want to see people vomiting blood. Do you want to use it before or after the show?”

As much as Ryan had wanted to leap from the bunk and do it that moment, he had been able to control himself and wait until after their concert. But he doesn’t want Spencer to have to hold back. He’s been planning this for weeks. Since Spencer’s gift for him had turned out so fantastic, it’s only right he manage the same for his best friend.

He rooms with Spencer as he always does, but wakes him up early with coffee and a doughnut from the continental breakfast and then insists he spends the rest of the morning shopping for clothes for his other half. Ryan gives him a card with a hundred dollar bill in it and tells him happy birthday, and if Spencer is disappointed at such an impersonal gift he hides it fairly well. Of course the money isn’t his real gift, just a means to lure Spencer out of the hotel. He then spends the rest of the morning shuttling back and forth between Target and other chain stores and the hotel, always buying the most generic brands. He doesn’t want anything high end that can be placed to him, or an unusual purchase that makes a pathetic cashier remember his face. 

It’s a bit of a process to tape the shower curtains to the walls, it’s easier when he starts to drape them over the beds and floors. He goes through a dozen rolls of duct tape covering the tiny holes where the curtains would normally hang, but finally, just before the car comes to take them to the venue Ryan is satisfied. Someone could bring in a bomb of paint and everything belonging to the hotel would stay clean. He grabs Spencer’s duffel from the bathroom where he’d stashed it and texts him that he’s got it and to just meet him at the car. After all, there’s no sense in ruining the surprise.

*

To say Spencer’s a little disappointed would be an understatement. Truthfully he’s actually kind of angry. It’s his birthday and he’s spent most of the morning and early evening rationing out the hundred Ryan gave him as his gift. There’s no use in not spending the money even if he can admit he was expecting something else from his best friend. Nothing fancy or expensive but certainly something better than the cheap birthday card with a single hundred haphazardly shoved into the crease. The impersonalness of it is actually astounding. 

Hell, even Brendon and Jon’s gifts, while not exactly wildly exotic or extremely personal, seemed to have some drop of thought put into them. Ryan’s just sort of smacked of last minute thoughtlessness. It’s probably the only reason Spencer’s thinking about taking the guys up on their offer of partying tonight. He’s nineteen and that makes him legal in Australia. It could be fun. He’s never really been inclined to hang out in the clubs or bars outside of his other skin. Might make things interesting. 

The venue they played is actually awkwardly far from their hotel. Spencer guesses it might be because they’re getting more famous, and fans are more likely to try to stalk them. Although that doesn’t really work, considering there’s still a massive bus leaving a concert venue and parking in a hotel parking lot. It would be easy as hell for any fan bored or insistent enough to wait an hour after the show to follow them. Whatever the reason it leaves him with a fifteen minute bus ride from the venue to their room. Fifteen minutes of Ryan being silent in his bunk, of Brendon and Jon curling into each other and talking about how much it’s going to kick ass to get drunk without using a fake ID. Which is probably most of the reason Ryan is silent in his bunk, so he doesn’t shout at them. It’s not like he can afford to stop them, the way he’s stopped however many strangers before they got together. He’s never asked Ryan for a count, Ryan’s never asked him. 

“So, what do you say, Spence? Going to get all the pretty boys and girls to buy you birthday drinks? I bet I could get the bartender to sing to you.” Spencer has no doubts that Brendon could get the bartender to burst into song, he’s kind of annoyingly amazing like that.

Really, what are his options? He could go to the bar and drink until he doesn’t remember how to walk to the bathroom by himself. Or he could go back to his and Ryan’s room and try to not show how upset he is, and of course Ryan will know. Ryan knows everything about him, except apparently that Hallmark and a paperclip pinning a bill to the cardboard isn’t okay after fourteen years. If he comes back to the hotel tanked Ryan will be pissed, but fuck him. Fuck his daddy drama and his need for control. Ryan can go ahead and be furious, Spencer doesn’t care. Fuck him.

Spencer throws on a grin, hoping the more alcohol that fills him the less fake it’ll be. “You’re going to buy me my first drink, right?”

Brendon grins and shakes his head. “Jon’s the prettiest boy of them all, he will.”

“We’re just gonna stop at our room and go straight back out. You might want to leave your shit in ours, I wouldn’t want Ryan to get revenge on your shoes or anything.” Jon adds.

Spencer nods. If he sleeps in Brendon and Jon’s room he won’t have to deal with Ryan having a fit until tomorrow. They’ll probably fuck, but he’ll probably be drunk enough to not notice. Besides, it can’t be that much worse than hearing them in Jon’s bunk, or seeing them make out in the lounge. “Might sleep there after.”

When the bus pulls to a stop Spencer goes by his bunk to grab his suitcase. Ryan is standing, looking almost impeccable considering that they’ve played a set and had to do a meet and greet after. “I wouldn’t go to the bar with them if I were you.”

Spencer meets Ryan’s sneer with a glare of his own. “Well you’re fucking not me, and I am. Brendon and Jon and I are going to the bar, and strangers are going to buy me birthday drinks. Because that’s what strangers do for your birthday, they pay for things!”

Ryan’s face slots back into his normal neutral and he says “Go with them to the bar. Or go with me, and bring a man back to the hotel. It’s your choice.”

An invitation like that is in no way a real choice and Ryan knows that. Which means he planned this out. If Spencer wasn’t suddenly happy about Ryan’s actual gift, he’d want to still stay somewhat angry, because there are better ways to set things up than make him feel like their friendship doesn’t matter.

“That’s not a choice, and you know it. Of course I’m going with you.”

Feeling only the slightest bit guilty he hurries off the bus so he can catch up to the other half of his band. “Sorry, but raincheck or something? Ryan’s got something planned, apparently it can only be tonight.”

“Oh! Maybe he’s taking you to see koalas! Have fun, Spencer James Smith.”

Jon snorts at Brendon, “You really think he’s going to take him to the zoo. _Ryan_. But it’s cool, there are still a few days left, we can go somewhere tomorrow night maybe?”

Spencer nods. Ryan will still be mad, but it’s not cool to bail without later compensation. “Yeah. Have fun being legal. Hell, make it a ‘what happens down under stays down under’ thing and pick up a girl. You’re not straight if it’s only once right?”

Brendon looks heavily at Jon, who Spencer thinks is a bit overexcited at the idea of a threesome, considering he knows they’ve had them a bunch of times in the States. “We’re not picking up a girl Jon.”

He leaves them to bicker and follows Ryan to their room. He has to knock on the door to get let in, he always carries his hotel key in his back pocket, but it’s not there. Ryan opens the door and Spencer can’t help but stare at the room. Every surface is covered in plastic. “How many hours did this take?”

Ryan shrugs. “Didn’t count. It didn’t matter. I was on time for the concert, and the room is safe for whatever you happen to want. Happy Birthday Spencer.”

Spencer sighs. It’s really fucking hard to be mad at Ryan for being a dick, when it’s obvious how much work this was. “You want to help with my makeup?” He’s never asked Ryan to help him change before. Even though they share a room he still goes into the bathroom before it’s time to go out. But if Ryan can do this for him, then he thinks he can trust him to help. Ryan’s probably better at makeup than he is anyway.

Ryan’s efficient with Spencer’s makeup and in no time at all they’re on their way to a decently packed club. The lights strobe and the music makes the floor vibrate. Spencer smooths out the shiny fabric of his dark dress. Ryan’s close to him. Which is another difference, normally if they do things together they’re still detached from each other, but tonight they’re doing something slightly different.

There’s tension in the stale air of the club and Spencer’s almost bubbling over with the excitement he can feel in the tension. He finds a spot at the end of the bar, far enough from the brunt of the drinking, and Ryan just sort of hovers near by. There’s a guy at the edge of the mass of writhing bodies pretending to dance in the center of the club. He keeps stopping to watch them. When the woman sitting next to Spencer gets up and starts to pull her companion with her towards the lady’s room, the guy slinks over and steals the empty seat. 

“Can I buy you a drink?”

He can practically _hear_ Ryan wincing. Spencer smiles and says “Only if I can buy you one too.”

The guy nods his head, introducing himself as something that Spencer forgets immediately. Either he’ll be a dick and it won’t matter, or he’ll be a decent guy and Spencer will leave the stool and search out someone else. He knows Ryan would be content with anyone, but Spencer isn’t. He knows what he’s here for. When the bartender passes Spencer the beers, the guy leans in and whispers ‘don’t bother baby, I know you’ll taste sweeter than that will.’ Then he licks Spencer’s ear.

Normally this would be the point where Spencer distracts him with heavy, wet kisses while his hands quickly work to pour Ryan’s vial into the top of the bottle. By the time he finishes the bottle he’ll be either near unconsciousness or entirely passed out, depending on his body weight. After that it’s easy to pass him off as a drunken idiot friend to the doorman, an arm slung on both his and Ryan’s shoulders. Spencer likes kicking someone to death in an alley better than slamming them against the dashboard. There’s less splatter, most of the time he can save his dress. His shoes are always ruined, but he’s learned to buy cheaper ones so it doesn’t break his heart when he has to destroy them.

Tonight is different though. Tonight they need to get the guy into their hotel room. Spencer’s not even sure if Ryan brought his concoction, just knows he doesn’t have it. He breaks away from the guy and says breathily, “my boyfriend likes to watch. Is that okay with you? It’s a lot of fun, honest.”

He leers, of course. The men that Spencer finds always leer. “I’ll give him something to watch.”

It doesn’t take much to get the guy to agree to take a cab with them back to their hotel room, instead of them following the guy back to his place. The wait for the cab takes longer than the amount of time that Spencer really wants to spend standing around on the curb while the guy keeps trying to feel him up in public. Eventually Ryan snags one, and opens the front passenger side door before sliding in. The guy pops open the back seat door and tugs Spencer along with him when he ducks down and slips into the cab. 

Sloppy wet kisses trail up and down his neck and the guy’s hand tries it’s best to inch up his thigh. Spencer repeatedly moves the guy’s hand and tries to distract him with kissing. Ryan’s up in the passenger seat, back rigid and posture straight enough to cut through metal. The smell of booze is heavy in the cab and Ryan’s not happy about it, Spencer can tell even though he’s partially distracted by the guy constantly trying to pull him into his lap.

About five minutes away from the hotel, Ryan tells the cab driver to pull over. He pays the tab in cash and the three of them walk the rest of the way back. If the guy thinks it’s unusual he doesn’t say anything. But then it’s probably because he’s too busy trying to get into Spencer’s dress to cop a feel. 

Spencer holds back in the hallway as Ryan slips his card into the machine containing the door handle. He only opens the door wide enough to slip through, keeping his hand on the handle so the door doesn’t swing shut. Spencer makes sure to push the guy through the door, Spencer closing it behind him. He wants to take his time, it’s his birthday. But if he has to hit the guy in the head to prevent him from leaving he will.

“What the fuck?” he asks as he takes in the plastic covered room. “Do you want me to piss on you or-”

His voice cuts off as Ryan jabs him in the neck with a needle and depresses it. Spencer didn’t even know Ryan had needles, but a lot of things are different tonight. The already fast acting chemical seems instant in this format, the guy falls to the floor in front of Spencer’s feet. 

“Well, go at it. You’ve got most of the night, bus call is at nine. I’ll let you sleep while I dispose of him.” It’s Ryan being magnanimous, and Spencer says thank you before starting to drag the guy over to the plastic covered bed. Spencer can’t help but grin. He’ll get to keep his shoes, he’s got a scumbag to play with, and Ryan didn’t forget him. It’s the best birthday ever.

*

Jon grumbles as he walks down the hallway. If any fangirl figured out they’re staying here he’s screwed, he’s only wearing flipflops and boxers. It’s sort of the perfect TMZ, although he’s not sure if Australia has TMZ. It’s annoying as hell, and possibly going to get his bare chest all over the internet, but there’s nothing else that can be done. They didn’t have time to clean up much after the concert, so he’s covered with a first layer of playing sweat and just barely wiped off stage makeup. Then they went straight to the bar, not sure what time Australian bars have to legally close, so he’s covered with a second layer of dancing sweat and the smell of cigarettes and beer. And once they got back to the hotel they fucked. So now Jon’s got a third layer of sex sweat, and the lube still on his dick is starting to get tacky and stick to the inside of his boxers.

Bottom line, Jon is fucking filthy, and not only is he not going back on the bus to feel like this for the next few days, he’s going to shower right the hell now. A message which Brendon didn’t seem to pick up, after he’d come he’d practically sprinted to the bathroom and started up the shower. The fucker had even locked the door so Jon couldn’t join him. 

Lucky for him he had found either Ryan or Spencer’s key card on the couch in the bus. Probably Spencer’s, Ryan is more detail oriented. In the time Jon’s been touring with them he hasn’t ever known Ryan to lose something. To hell with Brendon and his shower hoarding ways, Jon’s just going to borrow Spencer and Ryan’s.

He swipes the card into the magnetic reader and the light blinks from red to green. The moment his hand goes to press down on the handle he remembers that he forgot to bring a change of clothing, or at least another pair of boxers. Fuck it, he can totally bear to slip into his nasty pair for the few moments that it takes him venture from Spencer and Ryan’s room back to his and Brendon’s. He could probably borrow a pair from Spencer or Ryan but he’d really rather not. Even though he’s totally going to have to borrow their complementary hotel soap and shampoo since all of his supplies were sitting on the side of the sink in the bathroom when Brendon locked him out. Ryan would know, and Jon doesn’t really want to tempt fate in such a blatant way.

The door clicks open and he gently pushes on the metal of the handle to create a crack big enough for him to slip through. When he’s passed the threshold, he quietly shuts the door. Jon’s not exactly sure why he thinks he has to be quiet, it’s not like Spencer and Ryan are around yet. The last he checked they were still out and about somewhere. He’s quiet anyway.

Belatedly the sound of plastic crinkling draws his attention from the door towards the bedside lamp that’s been left on in the room. Ryan’s standing with his back to the door, his posture straight but somehow relaxed, like he’s content to watch the display that’s occurring on the bed closest to the closed off hotel window. There’s two people on the bed, and a speckling of blood is sprinkled across a portion of the plastic. Jon’s transfixed by what’s going on. The light cast from the lamp causes the colors of the dress he’s watching shimmer and almost ripple. The moment he notices that it’s Spencer wearing the dress, Ryan turns his head and catches him staring.

He’s never been good with this. Okay, so he’s never been in this exact situation before, but situations like this too. Jon’s not good with figuring out the right thing to say in a surprising scenario. He’s hardly surprised when “are you guys, like, torturing someone?” pops out of his mouth.

Ryan frowns slightly. “No. Spencer is. It’s his birthday, after all.”

It kind of slaps Jon in the face. Spencer said Ryan had something special planned. And apparently that something special was torturing someone. All of a sudden his friends seem so much more relatable. 

“Um. Me and Brendon do this too?” Jon’s not sure why it comes out as a question. Frankly it’s irritating, it makes him sound weak, powerless. He’s not afraid of Ryan, there’s no reason to be weak.

His words stop Spencer mid-hit. Spencer turns to look at him, and damn if he isn’t hot, even with bloody spatter all over his cheeks and full pink painted lips. If he didn’t think Ryan and Brendon would get pissed, he’d totally tap that. “You and Brendon do this?”

Jon shrugs. “Not _exactly_ that. I mean, we go after girls, and I can’t see everything, but that’s a guy, right? But mostly?”

Ryan stares at him, gaze clear. “Huh.”

“Actually, speaking of Brendon. Would you mind if. Could I go get him? It could be a birthday party.”

Ryan speaks for the both of them, “Is he drunk?”

“Am I drunk?” Jon says back carefully. The answer is probably ‘yeah, sort of’, but Jon’s not drunk enough to get them caught or anything. It’s not fair if he has to miss this because Ryan has a hang up about drinking.

Spencer grins, straddled on top of the guy. “The more the merrier, if you want to watch. But I’m not sharing.” 

Jon takes the permission and runs back to his room as fast as he can, stickiness and sweatiness all but forgotten. Now he just needs to get Brendon to listen to him and get out of the fucking shower.

*

Brendon’s sore and tired and maybe a little buzzed from the several beers he downed at the bar earlier. He’s taken to cutting back on the booze since Annie, but sometimes Jon’s able to goad him into drinking more than he would if he was alone in a place that serves liquor. He spends maybe ten minutes brushing his teeth, two of the minutes being the actual amount of time it takes for him to scrub the thick aftertaste of the beer from his tongue and the back of his teeth while the other eight spiral down the sink drain with the water that’s pouring from the faucet.

The bathroom handle jiggles and Jon knocks on the door several times. Brendon doesn’t pay any attention to the noise, he’s too busy tracking the whispering of the water as it rushes down into the pipes under the sink. One day he’s going to have time to curl up around the metal plumbing under a sink and just listen to the echo and reverb that happens when the water sings through the piping, but not tonight because he doesn’t have the time to really enjoy the experience. 

Jon twists the handle again. His knocking finally starts to break through the haze Brendon usually falls into when he’s preoccupied by the grace and light the water bathes him in, and Brendon cuts off the sink faucet, slowly shuffling to the shower afterwards. Jon stops knocking and Brendon sighs because one day he’s going to have to deal with Jon wanting to share a shower or even wanting to do other things under the hot spray and that’s really the only line Brendon’s never going to be willing to cross. He can’t, _he won’t_ , sully the words of the gospel with something as carnal and filthy as sex. 

Brendon moves his night clothes to the closed lid of the toilet and careful folds his towel into a giant square, placing it on the far corner of the sink away from Jon’s toiletries, as the spray heats up. The moment he finally stands under the water everything else fades away into nothing. The only thing existing around him is the Word spilling over his head.

His shoulders begin to unwind and Brendon goes about quickly cleaning himself of the grime that’s crawling across the surface of his skin. The quicker he’s clean the quicker he can let the whispers and snatches of melody flow through him. When he’s done, and the soap and shampoo have finally finished racing to their fate, Brendon lowers the shower head and crowds up closer the the faucet knobs. He leans his forehead against the slightly cool tiles of the un-warmed part of the shower’s wall and just listens, humming along under his breath when he recognizes a stanza or phrase.

He’s slowly noticing the water turning from hot to mildly warm when the noise of rapid fire knocking sounds against the bathroom door. It’s loud and Brendon does his best to drown it out by singing in tune with the song pouring down onto him. Jon starts shouting something at him that can be translated into nothing more than giddy excitement and slowly growing irritation. The pounding on the bathroom door doesn’t stop, and after several minutes the water gives up and goes quiet. Brendon’s left standing under the chilled spray wondering what could be so important. 

Under the lonely silence of the silent water Brendon can finally hear what Jon’s saying. It’s strange, confusing. “Open the motherfucking door Brendon! Spencer’s murdering someone and we’re missing it. I swear to God if you don’t open the goddamn door I’m going to put my foot in your ass.”

He turns the knobs until the water trickles to a stop and pulls a towel around his waist. He opens the door and almost gets Jon’s fist in his face as he’s about to start another flurry of knocking. “Did you say Spencer’s murdering someone?”

Jon glares at him, almost like he’s a groupie. Brendon shivers, not just from the air conditioned air hitting his damp chest. “I’ve been saying it for the last five minutes. He might be _done_ by now. Get dressed. Hurry the fuck up.”

Brendon’s still not really sure what’s going on, but he grabs his clothes. At the very least he doesn’t want to cross a line with Jon. They love each other, but he has a feeling that if Jon starts hitting him, he won’t stop and their relationship will change. It’s easier to just let that line not be crossed. 

The first thing he notices following Jon into the other room is that it’s very well set up. It’s meticulous, and Brendon approves. The second thing he notices is that there are spots of blood on Spencer and the man and the bed. He’s not dead yet, but he’s moving very sluggishly. The words spring to Brendon’s tongue, but he keeps his mouth shut. He doesn’t know if this man is pure, and he won’t soil his words for those who aren’t. 

Jon moves to the empty, yet similarly covered in plastic, bed and seems to be watching Spencer hit the guy over and over again with rapt attention. Brendon’s not sure that he’s comfortable watching this. Blood is messy, but more than that, blood is important and to spill it knowingly is just wrong. That doesn’t mean he’s not impressed by the layers of plastic covering everything. 

Ryan’s standing near the wall closest to the door and Brendon goes in that direction. When Jon finally notices that Brendon’s not coming to sit next to him, he narrows his eyes for a moment but he doesn’t get up and drag Brendon closer, so Brendon stands near Ryan and mostly watches his bare feet. 

The squelch of blood on plastic is unnerving, and while Brendon’s amazed by the never ending grace of God that’s put him in the position to witness his friends coming together in a way he’d only ever hoped for, he’s still not comfortable. Even with the plastic everywhere it’s still going to be hard to clean up, and Brendon busies himself thinking about that and imagining what the water would say to him if he walked outside and stepped over the edge of the outdoor pool’s concrete lip, instead of paying attention to the sounds and actions happening right in front of him. 

*

It’s not Ryan’s cup of tea. It all seems a bit mundane, really. Spencer’s not really rising above the rest of humanity doing this. The method is crude, amateurish. Ryan had thought with additional time and space Spencer would get creative. Possibly something with knives, or burning him with a heated light bulb after taking the lampshade off the lamp. Instead Spencer is merely beating the guy at a slower pace. It’s very nearly like being forced to watch WWE with his father. All that’s lacking is whorish women and moronic commentary.

Still, Ryan doesn’t feel it’s his place to complain. It’s a very rare feeling, one that generally only comes up in situations in which Spencer is a part. He doesn’t like the method, but it’s not his murder. This is Spencer’s birthday, and pointing out the obvious flaws would put a damper on the occasion. It wouldn’t be fair. When Spencer got him his cyanide several days ago, he said nothing about Ryan’s methodology.

Even considering the base nature Spencer is showing, there are highlights. He’s being thorough about it, as Ryan always was testing out earlier possible poisons. It makes it easier to take, thinking that it isn’t that Spencer is lacking intelligence or creativity, he’s merely finding his own personal strategy. Just as Ryan got over the use of oleander, it’s possible Spencer might get over bludgeoning. 

It’s also true that Spencer shares the same enlightened view on choice of victim. They both insist on choosing someone who deserves it, and while Ryan’s personal criteria are more about intoxicant use and Spencer’s are more about perverts, in the end they both want to rid the world of worthless people.

Ryan has no clue what criteria Jon and Brendon have. He’s actually leaning towards Jon lying about them killing women because Jon seems too giddy and excited about Spencer spilling blood for someone who should be used to taking people out. Maybe he’s thought about it, but Ryan’s pretty sure that Jon wouldn’t have the foresight to not get caught and since they still have a bass player. Ryan’s calling his bluff. 

Brendon’s clearly not enjoying the violence like Jon is. If they’ve been killing together for even the last couple of months he should at least be sitting curled up next to Jon watching the show instead of straying closer into Ryan’s own personal bubble. Ryan’s not impressed by Brendon at all, the least he can do is watch. Yet, he’s not. Apparently his bare feet are more interesting than Spencer passing judgement on one of the specks of dirt that society is populated with.

Ryan doesn’t miss the veiled looks Jon occasionally shoots in Brendon’s direction, every one of them filled with shards of barely concealed violence. And Ryan makes a note to pay more attention because even if he doesn’t exactly _care_ about Brendon, he’s not replaceable and Ryan’s not going to pick up the pieces if Jon does something stupid and has to be punished for fucking up. Pathetic or not, Brendon belongs here with them.

After a particularly nasty sounding crunch, Brendon slides closer to him and whispers something under his breath.

“What?” Ryan asks sharply. If Brendon’s going to talk and potentially ruin Spencer’s night with stupid thoughts, the least he can do is enunciate. They’ve had this problem since the early days of Brendon singing his lyrics.

“What,” Brendon asks, blinking as though trying to make Ryan come into focus. It’s... interesting. The idea of Brendon not so much ignoring as disassociating is one that Ryan’s going to have to think about. “Oh. Um, I was just wondering how you were going to get the body out of the room.”

Ryan raises his eyebrows. Potential interesting new facet of Brendon’s personality or not, Ryan still doesn’t appreciate being questioned. He planned this for weeks, since before landing in Australia. That Brendon could think he doesn’t know every instant of what he’s doing is insulting. “You do notice that we have a room with a door leading to the pool? The car I have rented is in the parking lot which is merely around the corner from the pool. Once Spencer is finished I’ll take down the plastic around the door and take the filth out.”

“Yeah, I saw. The poor water, getting all carbon monoxidy. But what if people are sneaking out to play in the pool? Just because they’re not supposed to go in after eleven doesn’t mean they won’t.”

As much as Ryan is loathe to admit it, Brendon has a point. “I wanted to let Spencer sleep, it is his celebration, he shouldn’t have to clean up the mess. Would you stand as lookout?”

Brendon blinks at him for a second almost as if he’s surprised that Ryan’s actually asking him for help before nodding once. Ryan’s not exactly happy that he has to ask either but Brendon seems like he might actually have one or two brain cells running around trying to be active and Ryan really doesn’t want to have to pull Spencer into clean up. 

“You might have to give me a moment though, because you don’t want to be dragging the body out wrapped in clear plastic or a white sheet. Any light’s going to make it a beacon. Unless you already have a black sheet?”

Ryan pauses because he really didn’t think about that. However now that he is thinking about it, it does make sense in a slightly off handed way that it would matter what colors you bundle the rubbish up in. Perhaps there’s a reason most heavy duty trash bags are black after all. 

It nearly kills him to say it. But in the end intelligence must come before pride, and that he knows that proves he’s smarter than most cretins in the world. “If there’s any other suggestions you have, I would be happy to hear them.”

*

When Spencer turned four, he got a tricycle. He doesn’t actually remember getting the tricycle, but he knows he did because there are about five hours of VHS footage of his dad trying to teach him how to ride it, and Ryan butting in with his opinion. He can still see it in his mind, blue and glittery with a white seat and white rims.

When Spencer turned twelve he got tickets to Smash Mouth. Two, of course. But then his dad had explained the extra wasn’t for him to chaperone, it was for Ryan to go with him. They were driven to the venue, and weren’t allowed to leave until his dad came inside and got them, but the point was they got to go by themselves. He can still remember the stage show, the constant flashes of orange light that left them almost blind in their nosebleed seats.

Now Spencer has turned nineteen, and has gotten a scumbag. He’s positive it surpasses every present he’s ever gotten, and ever will get. His belt is black with square silver studs every half inch, and they make impressions when they crush into the guy’s skin.

This birthday is different though. Ryan’s here, of course. Spencer’s not sure he could have a birthday without Ryan, which is what made him so frustrated earlier. But it’s more than Ryan. Jon and Brendon are with him, all sharing in the joy, in his glory. It’s like the longest moment of blowing out candles ever, like an infinite loop. He and his fists are the centre of attention. It’s brilliant.

At least, he knows he’s the centre of Jon’s attention. He’s pretty sure Brendon and Ryan don’t care as much. He sort of expects it from Ryan, the few times they’ve gone out together he’s learned that Ryan doesn’t much care for blood. Brendon’s a bit more surprising though. What with Jon claiming they killed people too, he would have thought Brendon for the overeager puppy he often was, climbing on the bed with him for a close up. Instead he’s sticking back behind with Ryan.

It’s an interesting twist, one that Spencer wouldn’t mind exploring in the future. Right now he’s too invested in his gift to really think about how Jon’s displaying more of the eagerness while Brendon’s alternating between giving off the vibe of ‘I don’t want to be here’ and ‘I wonder how long it would take to slowly pull off all the tape without leaving any trace’.   
Spencer’s probably covered in drops of blood by now and he doesn’t have to worry about having to walk away from the scene of his latest night out. It means he’s distracted enough as it is, and everything else can wait until later.

The belt wrapped around his knuckles makes a satisfying squish of a sound and Spencer smiles. There’s no way he’s ever going to get bored with this. The rush of exhilaration that comes from bludgeoning someone to death or kicking them until they shatter into tiny little bits of nothing is something he won’t be able to give up. Which he’s okay with because he gets to have fun and take out people who deserve it. What’s not to like about that set up?

*

Jon is jealous as hell. More than that, he doesn’t understand how the whole room isn’t jealous as hell. Okay, so obviously Spencer can’t be jealous of himself. And yeah, he knows that Brendon doesn’t really do the blood thing. But he’s barely holding himself back from jumping in beside Spencer and giving it a go, and he doesn’t get why Ryan isn’t chomping at the bit like him. 

Jon kills with Brendon because they have things in common, they both want to stop someone from breathing. So Brendon uses water and he uses his own hands. Bottom line is the person’s lungs stutter to a halt, and it’s awesome. He has to think Spencer and Ryan have something in common too. It can only be kindness that has Ryan not demanding a turn. Which is odd, considering it’s Ryan Ross, and Jon doesn’t think Ryan and nice have ever been used in the same sentence.

He doesn’t race to the bed opposite him, just watches, barely blinking. He doesn’t want to be the douchebag that snags the piece of cake with the biggest icing rose. Yeah, he maybe still want a piece of metaphorical cake. Yes, he definitely wants a place to bruise. But in keeping with the birthday metaphor -which is really actually fitting, considering this is Spencer’s actual birthday- the asshole that takes the best slice doesn’t get invited to the next birthday party. And it will fucking _kill_ him if Spencer doesn’t bring him in the next time he and Ryan capture someone. Especially if they happen to invite Brendon. It seems likely, the way he and Ryan are fucking whispering to each other. If Jon wasn’t so utterly certain Brendon wasn’t another Cassie, he’d be upset.

He’s willing to sit this one out if it means future entertainment. That doesn’t mean he can’t imagine himself on top of the man alongside Spencer. Frankly it would be a bit better if it was a woman. More satisfying to see a woman’s writhing slowly stop, more beautiful for a woman’s skin to slowly brown with bruises. But it’s not his choice, not when it’s Spencer’s special day. 

Maybe next time, because Jon really can’t fathom there not being a next time, they’ll let him have a chunk of the action. They’re all in this together now. So there would be no sense in them not sharing. 

Spencer stills his hand and crawls off the bed. Jon doesn’t notice Brendon’s gone until he slips back in with the black sheet Jon’s come to expect as an extension of Brendon’s skill at body disposal. He’d much rather drag Brendon back to their room so he can get rid of the tension singing in his veins, but if Brendon’s found a way to fit in then he’s going to stay and help also, even if clean up always bores the hell out of him. Team work might earn them extra points towards being invited along for the ride again and Jon’s more than on board for that. 

*

Pete finishes reading the comments on one of his more secret blogs and clicks over to the next page he has open. Well, more like four or five, Pete’s good at internet multi-tasking. It’s not headline news, not in a city so big. Hell, it’s not even in every newspaper. But a man washed up on shore in Sydney.

Pete can’t say he’s surprised. He’s sure he’s not catching them all. He can’t be. If he was then police probably would be too, and they’d all be fucked. All four of them, him, his fucking label. But on occasion someone is beaten by a gang outside a dirty downtown club, or a sweet teenage girl goes missing. 

He’s never going to say anything, of course. They’re his little band that could. If they feel like they have to go out and indulge in a little extra curricular activity every now and again then who’s he to stop them? As long as they’re safe about it he’s not going to bring it up.

That doesn’t mean he’s not going to randomly browse the web for articles on unsolvable murders from time to time. He never saves the pages and he always clears his browser history just in case. He’s not being paranoid, just cautious.


End file.
